UnOFFlGIHL 
CHRJSTIHRITY 


SHeiTOll  BISSGLL 


BX  7233  .B577  1918 
Bissell,  Shelton 

Unofficial  Christianity 


JDis 


;>^^  OF  ?mc(> 


— EEB 


UNO  FFICIAL 
CHRISTIANITY 


t^o. 


26  1918 


SHELTON  BISSELL,  B.D. 


<ih 


O 


BOSTON 
RICHARD    G.    BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


Copyright,  1918  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


FOREWORD 

These  little  sermons  were  preached  by  the 
author  in  the  First  Congregational  Church  of 
Boise,  Idaho,  during  the  late  winter  of  19 16-19 17. 
At  their  conclusion  the  earnest  wish  was  expressed 
by  the  members  of  his  Religious  Education  Com- 
mittee, at  the  head  of  which  stood  Dr.  E.  O.  Sis- 
son,  Commissioner  of  State  Education,  that  they 
should  be  published. 

This  has  been  done  In  the  earnest  hope  that 
some  who  have  failed  to  find  bread  In  much  of 
official  creeds  and  platforms  of  Christianity,  may 
at  least  be  encouraged  to  continue  to  look  to  Christ 
himself  for  food. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Changing  Ideas 9 

II  Changeless  Ideals 21 

III  Getting    Rid    of    an    Excommunicated 

God 34 

IV  The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible     .     .  44 
V  The  World,  the  Flesh,  and  the  Devil  56 

VI  Times,  Sacraments  and  the  Man       .     .  65 

VII  Just  Being  Good 75 

VIII  The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter  86 


UNOFFICIAL  CHRISTIANITY 


CHAPTER  I 

CHANGING   IDEAS 


THE  Impression  that  the  golden  age  lies  to 
the  rear  is  one  of  the  persisting  fallacies  of 
all  time.  Tennyson  was  true  to  human  nature 
when  he  observed  that 

"The  past  will  always  win 
A  glory  from  its  being  far, 
And  orb  into  the  perfect  star 
We  saw  not  when  we  moved  therein." 

In  many  quarters  it  is  still  more  popular  to 
eulogize  one's  ancestry  than  to  emphasize  one's 
posterity.  This  opinion,  in  the  minds  of  people, 
that  we  have  somehow  run  by  the  millennium  with- 
out knowing  it,  is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  we 
have  lost  a  good  many  orthodox  anchors.  But 
these  disquieted  souls  are  oblivious  of  the  equally 
patent  fact,  that  each  age  forges  its  own  anchors. 
Different  times  grow  different  opinions  as  in- 
evitably as  different  zones  grow  different  plants. 

9 


10  Unofficial  Christianity 

The  supreme  business  of  the  church  is  not  to 
cherish  a  deposit  of  truth  once  delivered  to  the 
saints,  but  to  cultivate  the  garden  where  the  tree 
of  truth  grows.  Christian  dogma  never  yet  has 
expressed  truth  fully, — it  has  approximated  it, 
and  this  will  continue  to  be  the  method  indefinitely. 
Thinking  about  life  and  living  out  life  do  not  stand 
in  opposite  armed  camps.  Though  the  former 
never  fully  explains  or  accounts  for  the  latter,  it 
will  never  cease  to  hold  the  attention  of  men. 
The  deeper  we  think,  the  closer  we  come  to  God, 
who  is  supreme  Mind.  "We  think  God's  thoughts 
after  Him." 

Religion  in  the  twentieth  century  will  have  dif- 
ferent ideas  about  the  world  and  itself  than  had 
religion  in  any  other  century. 

I.  Its  Universe  is  Vaster.  The  area  wherein 
its  God  once  moved  was  "a  right  little,  tight  little," 
comfortably  compact  and  precisely  measurable  uni- 
verse. On  a  waste  of  waters  floated  the  earth. 
Over  it  arched  the  solid  convex  firmament.  Above 
the  firmament  was  another  waste  of  waters.  In 
the  firmament  were  windows,  and  in  the  earth 
were  doors,  and  when  the  windows  above  and 
the  doors  below  were  opened,  the  rain  fell  and 
the  waters  rose.  From  east  to  west,  a  little 
journey,  ran  the  sun  each  day,  like  a  "strong  man, 
delighting  to  run  a  race."  In  his  brief  span  he 
measured  the  entire  heavens.    Thus  the  earth  was 


Changing  Ideas  il 

the  centre  of  the  solar  and  siderial  movements. 
And  "above  the  circle  of  the  earth"  sat  the  an- 
thropomorphic God.  To  him  men  looked  up, — a 
static  God,  permanently  resident  in  a  static  heaven. 
From  it  he  made  occasional  excursions  to  see 
what  men  were  doing.  To  it  men  aspired  to  climb, 
building  a  tower  until  God  in  self-defense  brought 
their  work  to  naught  by  a  babel  of  tongues.  Thus 
theology  was  built  out  of  a  geo-centric  universe, 
a  static  heaven,  an  anthropomorphic  and  architect 
God, — and  the  whole  scheme,  God  and  all,  was 
not  much  bigger  than  the  scroll  on  which  men 
wrote  it  down. 

But  long  ago  Copernicus  smashed  this  universe 
to  bits  when  he  demonstrated  that  the  earth  went 
round  the  sun,  not  the  sun  round  the  earth.  Later, 
the  telescope  infinitely  enlarged  the  boundaries  of 
the  universe  until  Our  brains  reel  under  the  con- 
cept of  immensity.  We  envy  the  nonchalance  with 
which  men  of  science  casually  tell  us  that  light, 
traveling  186,000  miles  a  second,  takes  three  and 
a  half  years  to  reach  us  from  Alpha  Centauri,  the 
nearest  of  the  fixed  stars.  And  if  we  have  the 
patience  to  calculate  how  far  distant  this  star  lies 
from  us,  we  are  then  asked  to  compute  the  distance 
of  the  farthest  star,  the  light  from  which,  starting 
when  King  Solomon  built  his  temple,  is  just  arriv- 
ing on  this  earth. 

The   theology  of  orthodoxy,   however,   is  not 


12  Unofficial  Christianity 

built  on  these  facts.  It  still  sets  up  its  localized 
heaven  and  hell,  its  limited  universe  of  space,  its 
architect  and  anthropomorphic  God.  And  yet 
heaven  is  not  above  the  earth,  nor  hell  beneath, 
for  there  is  no  up  nor  down  in  the  universe,  but 
only  out.  God  is  not  a  builder  retired  from  busi- 
ness, who  in  definite  and  measurable  manner  by 
rule  of  thumb  constructed  a  compact  and  delimited 
celestial  system  once  upon  a  time;  for  the  system 
is  not  yet  made,  and  is  never  the  same  from  mo- 
ment to  moment,  and  no  one  can  comprehend  the 
bounds  thereof,  for  it  has  no  bounds.  These 
earlier  notions  of  cosmogeny,  celestial  geography 
and  the  sporadic  activity  of  deity  have  passed 
away  from  the  realm  of  educated  thought;  but 
they  remain  embedded  in  the  dogmas  of  ecclesi- 
asticism. 

II.  Its  Time  is  Infinitely  Extended.  The  idea 
of  a  definitely  ascertained  date  on  which  things 
began  to  be,  is  a  prime  essential  of  the  doctrines 
of  orthodoxy.  Man  emerged  from  nothingness 
upon  a  certain  day,  4004  years  before  Christ.  All 
the  vast,  complex,  and  differentiated  life  of  this 
planet  has  been  crowded  into  this  brief  5900  years 
since  that  time.  Races,  nations,  literature,  the 
arts  and  sciences,  civilization,  culture, — all  these 
have  been  born  and  cradled  and  reared  and  many 
of  them  have  died  and  been  buried  within  this  all 
too  short  span.      Now  the  very  brevity  of  this 


Changing  Ideas  13 

world  process  necessitated  a  scheme  of  special  and 
instantaneous  creation.  Six  thousand  years  were 
not  long  enough  for  gradual  growth.  God  must 
start  some  things  at  maturity.  As  Athene  sprang 
full-armed  from  the  head  of  Zeus,  so  biological 
species  and  ranks  and  orders  leaped  fully  de- 
veloped from  the  earth.  Yet,  although  we  know 
that  the  longevity  of  great  trees  and  the  testimony 
of  fossiliferous  strata,  the  accumulated  sediment 
of  rivers  and  the  logic  of  the  growth  of  society, 
all  point  to  an  immeasurably  longer  time  of  human 
habitation,  and  organic  and  inorganic  develop- 
ment on  this  earth,  than  the  paltry  6000  years 
allowed  by  the  theory  of  fiat  and  special  creation, 
the  conception  of  a  definitely  begun,  a  something- 
out-of-nothing-made,  and  a  short  careered  universe 
still  keep  their  tenacious  grip  upon  orthodox 
theology.  The  longevity,  if  not  the  infinity  of  the 
time  processes  of  creation,  has  not  sufficiently  im- 
pressed the  minds  of  the  makers  of  the  doctrines 
of  orthodoxy,  to  lead  them  to  reject  the  obsolete 
and  discredited,  for  the  true  and  proven. 

III.  Its  Man  is  Nobler.  More  significant  are 
the  changing  ideas  about  man.  Original  sin  and 
total  depravity  have  been  the  twin  mill-stones 
about  the  neck  of  humanity. 

''In  Adam's  fall 
We  sinned  all," 


14  Unofficial  Christianity 

was  more  than  a  nursery  jingle, — it  was  a  por- 
tentous doctrinal  announcement  of  doom.  From 
this  oracular  version  of  an  ancient  Semitic  legend 
has  come  a  whole  theology  of  pessimism  and 
human  helplessness.  It  created  for  itself  a  termin- 
ology abounding  in  such  words  and  phrases  as 
"total  surrender,  our  lost  estate,  moral  inability, 
worthless  worms,  broken  and  empty  vessels,"  and 
it  magnified  God's  grace  into  everything,  and 
whittled  man's  grit  down  to  nothing. 

To-day  men  believe  that  they  are  saved,  not 
by  being  supplanted  by  God,  but  by  being  supple- 
mented by  him.  Otherwise  creation  would  seem 
to  have  been  a  waste  of  God's  time.  They  hold 
that  if  Adam  tainted  the  race,  God  has  had 
plenty  of  time  since  to  make  it  wholesome.  They 
assert  that  what  man  needs  is  not  surrender  but 
discovery.  They  believe  that  humanity,  raised  to 
its  highest  potentiality,  is  divinity.  In  brief:  that 
salvation  consists  in  true  self-expression  through 
God-contact,  not  in  self-repression  through  God- 
usurpation. 

Yet  a  single  glance  through  the  pages  of  the 
present  day  theology  of  orthodoxy  will  convince 
one  that  its  doctrines  are  still  deduced  from  the 
discarded  premises  of  "depravity  and  fallen 
estate,"  and  that  it  is  still  sceptical  of  the  ability 
of  man  to  do  very  much  for  himself,  despite  the 
fact  of  his  divine  kinship. 


Changing  Ideas  15 

Once,  also,  and  not  so  long  ago,  man  was  a 
duality  or  a  trinity.  Body  warred  against  spirit, 
and  flesh  against  soul.  Or  mind  and  soul  and  body 
were  engaged  in  Internecine  strife.  From  this  idea 
came  asceticism,  and  the  hurtful  practices  of  flesh- 
mortifications  and  flagellations,  for  the  sake  of  the 
emancipation  and  exaltation  of  the  enslaved  spirit. 
This  dichotomy  and  trichotomy  of  the  person  has 
done  Its  injurious  work  upon  the  body  of  Chris- 
tian thought  for  centuries,  and  to-day  its  baleful 
effect  Is  felt  in  every  organ.  Squarely  antagonistic 
to  this  Is  the  truth  of  this  age,  that  personality  Is 
a  unity.  So  nicely  blended  are  the  elements  of 
body  and  spirit  that  what  helps  and  hurts  the  one, 
helps  and  hurts  the  other.  The  properties  of  the 
bodies  are  not  devilish,  bastard,  and  hostile  to 
the  properties  of  the  mind.  They  are  rather  the 
legitimate  Instruments  of  the  real  person,  the  self- 
knowing  and  self-directing  ego.  Modern  psychol- 
ogy, as  all  really  know,  insists  upon  the  closest  and 
most  Intimate  relation  between  the  interacting 
body  and  mind. 

But  the  theology  of  orthodoxy  is  still  permeated 
with  the  doctrine  of  man's  duality  or  trinity,  with 
the  cognate  thought  of  the  opposition  of  the  one 
to  the  other.  Paul's  dictum  of  a  "warring  to- 
gether of  flesh  and  spirit"  has  been  twisted  out 
of  Its  figuratively  spiritual  meaning,  and  has  been 
given  a  literal  metaphysical  construction  which  the 


1 6  Unofficial  Christianity 

words  do  not  warrant. 

So,  too,  man  was  once  thought  to  be  inspired 
through  a  kind  of  temporary  soul-dispossession  or 
suspended  animation.  His  individuality  was  dis- 
carded for  the  time  being.  He  was  literally  "not 
himself."  He  fell  into  a  kind  of  holy  swoon  and 
saw  visions  and  heard  voices.  Or  he  became  a 
mere  automaton, — a  pen-point  in  the  hand  of  the 
Almighty.  He  was  an  amanuensis,  and  wrote 
what  God  dictated.  Now  this  was  a  quite  logical 
deduction  from  the  doctrine  of  man's  total  de- 
pravity. Of  and  by  himself,  man  could  not  think 
or  know  or  do  one  true  or  holy  thing.  Hence  God 
had  to  pour  him  full  of  revelation,  as  a  cup  is 
poured  full  of  water.  Man  had  to  guard  against 
mixing  up  any  ideas  of  his  own  with  the  ideas  of 
God.  He  could  be  God's  private  secretary  and 
take  down  at  his  dictation  what  he  uttered, — no 
more.  As  a  passive  channel  through  which  the 
wisdom  of  the  Almighty  might  trickle,  he  was  a 
success  now  and  then.  As  an  interpreter  of  truth 
through  the  medium  of  his  own  unenlightened  in- 
telligence and  personal  experience,  he  was  a  de- 
lusion and  a  snare. 

Now,  however,  it  is  believed  on  the  best  of 
evidence  that  inspiration  means  raising  a  man's 
individuality  to  its  highest  terms,  not  reducing  it 
to  the  vanishing  point.  The  portion  of  truth  which 
each  man  utters  is  colored  and  characterized  by 


Changing  Ideas  17 

the  peculiar  temperament  and  prepossessions  of 
the  speaker.  Moral  and  religious  predispositions 
will  affect  the  quality  of  his  message  to  this  extent, 
— that  they  will  give  to  that  nugget  of  truth  which 
the  speaker  has  found,  that  quality  of  alloy  which 
is  inevitably  associated  with  his  fallible  nature. 
As  the  water  takes  its  color  from  the  soil  through 
which  it  flows,  so  the  utterance  of  truth  takes  its 
hue  from  the  individuality  of  the  speaker  who  is 
its  mouthpiece.  New  psychology  does  not  deny 
revelation,  it  denies  the  old  mechanical  "suspended 
animation"  ideas  of  the  method  of  revelation.  It 
finds  the  channel  of  communication  between  the 
individual  and  God  in  that  sensitive  submerged 
self,  the  sub-conscious,  upon  which  the  mind  of 
eternal  Truth  plays  as  a  musician  upon  his  instru- 
ment. Even  as  the  musician  can  express  only  im- 
perfectly, according  to  the  limitations  of  his  Instru- 
ment, the  thought  of  the  composer,  so  can  the  Ideal 
of  truth  be  mirrored  forth  but  dimly  and  partially. 
Man  does  not  passively  record  the  picture  of  God 
like  a  sensitive  photographic  plate,  but  actively 
takes  the  phase  of  truth  which  he  has  found,  and 
gives  It  shape  and  color  and  expression  as  it  passes 
through  the  seething  crucible  of  his  thoughts. 

IV.  Its  Processes  are  Inductive.  Long  ago 
men  abandoned  a  priori  methods  of  investigation. 
Bacon  showed  the  folly  of  starting  with  a  theory 
and  then  hunting  for  facts  to  fit  the  theory.    Ex- 


1 8  Unofficial  Christianity 

perlences  are  the  final  test.  We  begin  with  them, 
and  out  of  them  we  derive  our  principles  of 
thought  and  action.  We  examine  the  universe 
and  find  in  it  order,  system,  unity,  and  regularity. 
We  conclude,  therefore,  that  there  is  a  mind  and 
will  behind  this  cosmos,  and  we  call  this  mind  and 
will,  "God."  Once  men  would  have  begun  with 
an  idea  about  God,  which  they  had  excogitated 
from  metaphysics,  or  logic,  or  fancy,  and  would 
have  bent  the  facts  to  fit  the  theory,  no  matter 
what  resulted  to  the  facts. 

The  inductive  process  is  more  widely  operative 
than  we  suspect.  There  is  not  a  cherished  conven- 
tion or  institution  which  is  not  being  weighed  in 
the  scales  of  induction.  Do  the  facts  of  life,  the 
needs  of  humanity,  the  large  axiomatic  and  in- 
dubitable verities,  intuitively  known,  warrant  these 
same  conventions  and  institutions?  If  not,  must 
they  be  merely  modified,  or  swept  aside  in  totof 
The  church,  the  state,  the  marriage  relation,  the 
home,  the  school, — these  time-honored  institu- 
tions, cherished  and  enriched  by  Christianity,  must 
defend  themselves  against  a  growing  clamor  of 
criticism.  If  these  institutions  will  minister  to  the 
fundamental  needs  of  social  man,  if  they  will  in- 
crease his  vitality,  dignity,  and  happiness,  then 
they  will  stand.  But  if,  in  our  highly  complex  and 
rapidly  socializing  civilization,  these  ancient  con- 
ventions,  like   lumbering  stage-coaches,   will  not 


Changing  Ideas  19 

carry  mankind  safely  and  swiftly  along  the  high- 
way of  life,  then  they  must  be  superseded  by  other 
vehicles  more  adapted  to  the  time.  Thus  we  start, 
not  with  an  a  priori  theory  about  the  inviolability 
and  everlasting  sanctity  of  these  Institutions  upon 
which  we  have  built  our  modern  world,  but  rather 
we  start  with  experiences,  aspirations,  Intuitions; 
and  rigidly  Insist  that  these  shall  be  conserved  by 
the  habits  and  conventions  of  society.  Even  If  this 
method  of  Induction  should  be  highly  Inconvenient 
to  religious  practices,  it  undoubtedly  has  come  to 
stay,  and  theology  ought  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
But  it  is  quite  evident  that  the  method  of  ortho- 
doxy is  to  make  the  institution — the  church,  the 
Sabbath,  the  sacrament,  marriage,  home  and  the 
like — the  primary  and  paramount  thing,  whether 
the  needs  of  a  modern  world  are  met  adequately 
by  them  or  not. 

Evolution — which  is  another  way  of  saying 
that  organic  life,  individual  and  social,  becomes 
differentiated  through  forces  operating  and  in- 
herent within  each  body  rather  than  through  spe- 
cial acts  of  creation  and  modification  exerted  from 
without  the  body — Is  known  to-day  to  be  the 
method  of  progress.  It  Is  all  the  more  regrettable, 
therefore,  that  evolution  is  anathema  maranatha 
to  the  theology  of  orthodoxy,  and  that  those  who 
wear  its  sign  and  own  its  sway  may  not  hope  to 
enter  the  portals  of  an  officially  accredited  evan- 


20  Unofficial  Christianity 

gellcal  faith. 

Honestly  to  recognize  changing  Ideas,  and  to 
adjust  the  timeless  principles  of  religion  to  the 
temporary  thought-forms  of  the  day  so  that  re- 
ligion may  not  be  a  thing  apart,  antique,  and  mis- 
understood. Is  the  heroic  task  of  the  Christian 
world.  Truth  Is  a  matter  of  all  times,  and  has 
resources  for  all  needs.  From  whatever  point  of 
compass  the  wind  may  blow,  the  mariner  uses  the 
same  rudder  to  steer  him  to  the  desired  haven. 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties. 

Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth, 
He  must  upward  go,  and  onward. 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  truth.'' 


CHAPTER  II 

CHANGELESS    IDEALS 

AN  idea  is  passive,  an  ideal  is  active.  An  ideal 
is  an  idea  in  motion,  accomplishing  some- 
thing,— that  has  the  power  to  make  the  one  who 
cherishes  it  its  disciple,  defender,  crusader.  An 
ideal  is  able  to  recruit  men,  set  them  to  work, 
arouse  energy.  An  ideal  is  an  idea  dynamized  and 
magnetized.  An  idea  is  the  object  of  men's  con- 
templation; an  ideal,  the  object  of  their  convic- 
tion. The  former  is  a  picture  to  view;  the  latter, 
a  motive  to  drive.  Men  hold  the  idea  of  knowl- 
edge, and  about  it  they  speculate,  argue,  discuss. 
They  may  admire  and  exalt  it,  but  not  follow  it. 
But  men  hold  the  ideal  of  knowledge,  and  for  it 
they  will  sacrifice  health  and  comfort,  toward  it 
they  will  struggle  with  grim  determination,  and  in 
comparison  with  it  they  will  count  all  earthly 
riches  and  treasure  as  mere  dross. 

This  being  so,  it  follows  that  a  man  is  worth  his 
ideals,  not  his  ideas.  The  former  persist,  the 
latter  change.  The  latter  touch  the  periphery  of  a 
man,  the  former  become  immanent  in  his  moral 

21 


22  Unofficial  Christianity 

consciousness.  If  religion  seems  open  to  convic- 
tion on  the  charge  of  failing  to  meet  ideas,  she  be- 
comes vindicated  as  exalting  Ideals.  So  long  as 
she  inspires  men  to  seek  ends,  rather  than  to  think 
on  means,  so  long  will  she  be  invincible. 

There  are  three  ideals  at  least  which  religion 
has  never  lost,  and  which,  as  religion,  she  never 
can  lose.  These  ideals,  it  is  true,  sometimes  have 
been  repudiated  by  pseudo-religion,  dogmatism, 
and  ecclesiastlclsm.  But  the  life  of  genuine  re- 
ligion depends  upon  them,  and  to  them  the  truly 
religious  man  will  cling.    They  are : 

I.  Sincerity,  an  ideal  affecting  the  Integrity  of 
a  man's  soul. 

II.  Loyalty,  an  Ideal  affecting  a  man's  rela- 
tion to  God. 

III.  Unity,  an  Ideal  affecting  a  man's  relations 
to  his  fellows. 

I.  Sincerity.  There  Is  only  one  thing  more 
disastrous  than  dishonesty  toward  others,  and 
that  is  dishonesty  toward  oneself.  Unless  one  Is 
absolutely  sincere  with  his  own  soul  he  cannot  be 
sincere  with  others.  Jesus  found  an  appalling 
amount  of  insincerity  being  palmed  off  as  genuine 
piety.  He  was  compelled  to  call  the  respectable 
hypocrites  of  his  day  by  some  harsh  names  in 
order  to  do  justice  to  his  feelings,  and  to  them. 
"Whitewashed  sepulchres"  and  "dirty  cups  and 
platters"  were  some  of  the  richly  deserved  epi- 


Changeless  Ideals  23 

thets  which  he  applied  to  them.  This  he  did, 
primarily,  because  they  were  trying  to  fool  people. 
They  began  by  fooling  themselves,  and  ended, 
of  course,  by  fooling  most  everybody  else. 

The  need  of  sincerity  was  never  more  urgent, 
largely  because  the  demand  of  society,  politics,  ec- 
clesiasticism  is  "conformity."  In  college  life  a 
man  who  breaks  with  sacred  tradition  "queers 
himself."  In  politics,  a  man  who  leaves  his  party 
is  disciplined.  In  society,  a  man  who  defies  custom 
is  ostracised.  In  ecclesiasticism,  a  man  who  re- 
nounces orthodoxy  is  banned.  Seldom  is  the  ques- 
tion raised:  "If  these  excommunicants  are  sin- 
cere, should  not  their  opinions  be  tolerated,  even 
respected?"  Conformity  is  not  a  sure  prophylac- 
tic. Sincerity  is.  A  tainted  community  will  be  dis- 
infected more  quickly  through  heresy  than  through 
orthodoxy,  if  perchance  the  former  is  sincere  and 
the  latter  not. 

The  very  life  of  religion  depends  upon  sincerity. 
It  is  not  going  to  be  a  child's  task  to  preserve 
this  life.  The  official  creeds  are  barnacled  with 
doctrines  which  many  honest  men  must  repudiate. 
Yet  there  are  those  who  conform  to  these  creeds 
who  cannot  sincerely  believe  them.  This  seems  a 
monstrous  charge  to  make.  But  facts  bear  out 
this  assertion.  Those  who  hold  holy  orders  in  one 
of  the  historic  churches  of  Christendom  must 
agree  that  "divine  grace  can  come  to  man  only 


24  Unofficial  Christianity 

through  the  medium  of  an  unbroken  apostolic  suc- 
cession." This  means  that  in  no  other  way,  save 
through  the  sacrament  of  Holy  Communion  ad- 
ministered by  a  priest  in  that  particular  church, 
can  the  good,  healthy  life  of  God  get  into  a  man. 
Yet  one  who  speaks  from  an  intimate  acquaint- 
anceship with  the  church  in  question,  and  who 
speaks  uncontradicted,  says:  "Everybody  knows 
that  there  are  numbers  of  Anglican  clergymen  who 
do  not  beheve  that  the  charismatic  gift  is  de- 
pendent upon  an  unbroken  apostolic  succession. 
.  .  .  Everybody  knows  also  that  no  layman,  not 
even  a  non-conformist  minister,  can  take  orders  in 
the  Anglican  church  without  submitting  to  that  ec- 
clesiastical ceremony  by  which  he  professes  his  be- 
lief in  that  doctrine." 

Will  any  one  doubt  that  there  are  large  numbers 
of  worshipers  who  in  their  hearts  honestly  ques- 
tion the  truth  of  the  assertion  that  Jesus  was  "con- 
ceived of  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,"  and  yet  who  glibly  patter  the  Apostolic 
Creed  each  Sunday?  Even  in  the  articles  of  faith 
of  the  so-called  more  liberal  churches,  there  are 
items  referring  to  the  infallibility  of  the  scriptures, 
the  metaphysical  nature  of  the  Trinity,  and  the 
substitutionary  method  of  the  atonement,  which 
should  be  expunged  in  the  interest  of  strict  hon- 
esty. "The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  re- 
member" any  creed  the  adherents  of  which  are 


Changeless  Ideals  25 

with  reason  suspected  of  holding  it  with  certain 
strong  mental  reservations,  or  disingenuous  ex- 
planations. "Let  your  speech  be  yea,  yea;  nay, 
nay;"  said  the  great  Master  of  sincerity,  and 
added,  "whatsoever  is  more  than  these  cometh  of 
evil."  And  the  implication  may  be  as  strongly  in 
the  direction  of  creeds  that  mean  exactly  what 
they  say,  as  in  the  direction  of  a  speech  unadorned 
by  expletives. 

The  prime  business  of  a  Christian  is  to  as- 
semble the  facts  of  life;  mobilize  the  experiences; 
marshal  the  intuitions;  then  examine  them  with 
honesty,  humility,  and  a  mind  hospitable  to  truth; 
heat  them  all  with  the  fire  of  a  pure  enthusiasm, 
fusing  them  together  for  a  great  and  unselfish  pur- 
pose; and  then,  whatever  the  result  may  be,  to 
hold  to  it.  Let  a  man  "will  to  believe."  Let  him 
bring  to  bear  all  the  desire  to  be  orthodox  that  he 
may.  There  will  be  unique  occasions  when  what 
appears  from  the  seething  caldron  is  not  the  con- 
viction which  he  had  anticipated.  There  will  be 
times  when  the  bland  egg  of  creed  may  hatch  an 
ugly  duckling.  And  all  the  orthodox  barn-yard 
fowls  may  cackle  at  him  that  he  has  got  an  "unde- 
sirable barn-yard  citizen,"  and  with  many  a  cruel 
peck  they  will  banish  him  from  the  domestic  pre- 
cincts. But  he  knows  that  though  it  be  not  a  prop- 
er duckling,  it  has  a  right  to  lie  on  the  straw  and 
sail  on  the  pond.    And  some  day,  in  the  slow  turn- 


26  Unofficial  Christianity 

Ing  of  the  wheel  of  time,  It  will  prove  to  be  a  glori- 
ous swan. 

Let  Christianity  beware  of  compromising  with 
sincerity  for  the  sake  of  orthodoxy. 

II.  Loyalty.  The  religion  of  the  twentieth 
century  will  insist  upon  that  heart-attachment  to 
the  eternal  God  which  shall  save  men.  Nothing 
short  of  that  kind  of  loyalty  will  avail.  It  was 
the  only  loyalty  that  counted  with  Christ.  He  em- 
phatically asserted  that  there  was  no  law  greater 
than  allegiance  to  God  with  heart  and  mind  and 
soul  and  strength.  This  puts  all  of  a  man  in  inti- 
mate contact  with  God.  In  feeling,  in  thinking, 
in  aspirations,  in  his  physical  powers,  even,  he  is 
to  be  an  unswerving  partisan  of  the  Almighty. 

Now  loyalty,  as  a  virtue,  is  not  unknown  to  the 
theology  of  orthodoxy.  But  it  is  the  minor  and 
subordinate  loyalty  to  sacraments,  formulae, 
rituals,  institutions  and  dogmatic  infallibles. 
All  these  may  be  short  of  God.  In  point  of  fact, 
they  generally  are.  The  proof  of  this  is  found  in 
the  refusal  of  orthodoxy  to  abate  its  creed  one  jot 
or  tittle  in  the  face  of  radical  and  sweeping  modi- 
fications of  men's  ideas  of  God.  The  rigidity  of 
orthodoxy  convicts  it  of  disloyalty  to  the  very 
principle  about  which  it  claims  to  be  most  ortho- 
dox. In  utter  loyalty  a  man  may  break  with  a 
theology.  What  happens?  He  is  damned  by  the 
adherents  of  that  theology.    And  for  what?    For 


Changeless  Ideals  27 

disloyalty  to  the  theology  without  reference  to 
God.  He  who  doubts  this,  easily  may  make  the 
test.  It  win  be  necessary  for  him  merely  to  ex- 
press his  opinion  that  the  Ideal  of  the  Kingdom  Is 
Independent  of  any  belief  In  the  total  Inerrancy  of 
Scripture,  the  substitutionary  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment, the  virgin  birth,  the  physical  resurrection, 
the  metaphysical  trinity,  the  observance  of  the 
sacraments  of  baptism  and  the  Supper,  a  spatial 
and  material  heaven  and  hell,  and  a  membership 
In  an  evangelical  church.  Startling  results  will  be 
sure  to  follow.  Honestly  believing  all  this,  this 
same  belief  will  not  be  "counted  unto  him  for 
righteousness."  His  shrift  will  be  short  and  his 
excommunication  long.  He  has  been  disloyal  to 
orthodoxy, — what  matter  about  his  loyalty  to 
God? 

As  the  demands  of  this  age  are  for  sincerity  in 
the  first  place,  so  It  Inevitably  follows  that  if  a 
man's  sincerity  leads  him  to  break  with  orthodoxy 
in  the  interest  of  loyalty  to  God,  there  shall  be 
nothing  but  approval  for  the  departure.  This 
demand  will  result  In  more  flexible  creeds,  so  con- 
structed as  to  be  adjustable  to  honest  modifications 
of  convictions  which  occur  from  time  to  time. 
The  heresy  of  the  twentieth  century  is  going  to 
be  insincerity  in  the  first  place,  and  then,  as  a 
corollary,  loyalty  to  a  creed  which  Is  disloyal  to 
God.     To  make  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  both 


28  Unofficial  Christianity 

loyal  to  God  and  loyal  to  creed,  will  be  the  stimu- 
lating task  of  the  religion  of  this  age. 

III.  Unity.  This  is  the  ideal  which  affects  a 
man's  relations  to  his  fellows.  In  sheer  self- 
defense  to-day,  the  church  is  putting  this  in  the 
fore-front  of  its  platforms.  The  alarming  evi- 
dences of  disintegration,  so  visible  on  every  hand, 
may  be  unerringly  traced  to  the  schismatic  spirit 
of  sectarianism,  which  has  made  the  church  im- 
potent to  mitigate  the  woes  of  a  world  in  torment. 

But  at  the  very  outset  a  distinction  between 
unity  and  uniformity  should  be  drawn.  Nor  is 
this  done  in  a  spirit  of  casuistry,  nor  in  the  inter- 
ests of  an  ecclesiastical  system.  It  is  not  Intended 
to  becloud  the  issue  through  logomachy.  The 
argument  is  not  to  run  thus: 

1.  The  demand  is  for  uniformity. 

2.  Doing  away  with  sectarianism  would 
mean  uniformity. 

3.  But  unity,  not  uniformity,  is  the  real 
need. 

4.  Hence  we  shall  not  help  matters  by 
interfering. 

The  argument  will  run,  rather: 

1.  The  demand  is  for  unity. 

2.  Doing  away  with  sectarianism  would 
mean  uniformity,  not  necessarily  unity. 

3.  A  modified  sectarianism  would  mean 
unity. 


Changeless  Ideals  29 

4.     Hence  let  us  modify  sectarianism,  not 

do  away  with  it. 

Uniformity  is  an  outward,  artificial,  and  non- 
vital  agreement  in  method  and  order.  Unity  is 
an  inner,  spontaneous,  and  vital  agreement  in 
spirit  and  principle.  You  may  have  heterogeneity 
and  lack  of  cohesion,  and  yet  have  uniformity. 
You  may  have  dissimilarity  in  form  and  variety  in 
expression  and  yet  have  unity.  There  may  be 
unity  in  a  democracy  of  states,  differing  widely  in 
their  several  characteristics.  There  may  be  lack 
of  unity  in  a  monarchy,  all  parts  of  which  look  and 
act  ahke.  For  religion  to  demand  uniformity, 
therefore,  would  be  for  it  to  ask  for  a  stone  in- 
stead of  a  loaf.  For  it  to  demand  unity,  however, 
is  simply  for  it  to  adopt  life-saving  precautions. 
If  It  can  have  unity  by  preserving  all  of  the  sects, 
they  will  be  preserved;  if  It  can  have  unity  by 
destroying  some  of  them,  it  will  destroy  them. 
The  prime  demand  is  unity,  not  uniformity. 

A  little  consideration  will  convince  any  honest 
person  that  to  persist  and  do  its  work  and  cope 
with  hostile  forces,  themselves  united,  religion 
must  make  a  much  more  serious-minded  and  reso- 
lute effort  toward  unity  than  it  has  heretofore 
made.  No  half-hearted  compromises  will  avail. 
There  must  be  sacrifice,  the  heroic  cutting  down  to 
the  quick,  the  true  unselfish  renunciation  of  cher- 
ished,  but  non-essential   religious  hobbies.     The 


30  Unofficial  Christianity 

liberal  will  have  to  surrender  some  things,  as  well 
as  the  conservative,  for  the  former  has  gone  as 
far  ahead  of  the  procession  as  the  latter  has  fallen 
behind.  The  process  is  going  to  be  a  painful  one, 
and  there  is  going  to  be  weeping  and  wailing  and 
gnashing  of  teeth.     But  it  is  the  only  way. 

Some  churches  are  ready  even  now.  As  a  rule, 
they  stand  midway  between  the  rear  and  advance 
guard.  They  have  announced  their  willingness 
to  seek  a  common  ground  of  conviction  with  other 
communions.  They  may  not  believe  that  it  is 
necessary  to  abolish  the  institutional  forms  by 
means  of  which  they  work,  simply  in  order  to 
agree  in  spirit  with  those  who  hold  other  forms. 
But  they  are  resolved  never  to  allow  ritual,  rubric, 
sacrament,  polity,  or  ecclesiastical  tradition  to 
stand  between  them  and  a  good,  healthy,  sympa- 
thetic understanding  with  their  neighbor  denom- 
inations. When  this  spirit  appears,  unity  is  not 
far  away. 

It  may  make  its  approach  along  any  one  of  sev- 
eral different  avenues.  It  may  come  from  lands 
of  far  suns  and  alien  tongues,  where  the  pagan, 
for  his  very  soul's  sake,  must  not  suspect  a  divided 
Christendom.  Here  the  missionary  becomes  an 
"Episco-presby-gationalist,"  combining  the  best 
that  there  is  in  one  polity,  with  the  best  that  there 
is  in  the  others.  For  the  untutored  savage  and  the 
sophisticated  oriental  alike,  it  would  be  a  fatal  in- 


Changeless  Ideals  31 

dictment  against  Christianity  to  differentiate  be- 
tween the  various  cross-breeds  and  hybrids  of 
Protestant  faith  which  are  on  exhibition  In  the 
Occident.  "Is  Christ  divided?"  would  be  the 
more-than-sllencing  rejoinder  of  the  object  of  an 
evangelizing  solicitude,  to  sectarian  invitation. 
Back  to  the  sluggish  and  muddled  stream  of  a 
European  and  American  conventionalized  Chris- 
tianity may  yet  flow  the  purer  waters  of  an  Asian 
or  African  faith  in  Jesus,  quickening  and  purify- 
ing the  former,  not  the  least  evidence  of  which 
shall  be  the  birth  of  the  spirit  of  Christian  unity. 
Or  the  very  urgency  of  the  present  world  crisis, 
which  has  wxU-nigh  overwhelmed  the  church  In 
Europe  under  the  threefold  indictment  of  infi- 
delity, inefl^clency  and  Imbecility,  may  operate  to 
wipe  out  the  schismatic  spirit.  For  generations  the 
established  and  non-established  churches  of  the 
British  Empire  have  stood  locked  in  combat,  each 
grimly  determined  to  abate  not  a  jot  the  classic 
hostility  which  they  piously  have  received  as  a 
legacy  from  former  generations.  To-day  the  face 
of  the  world  has  changed.  The  trenches  have 
made  strange  bedfellows.  In  the  withering  fire  of 
death,  old  controversies  have  been  forgotten. 
Back  from  the  battle-front  come  the  healing  In- 
fluences. Says  a  leading  spokesman  for  the  non- 
llturglsts,  "relations  between  Anglicans  and  Non- 
conformists are  more  cordial  than  they  have  ever 


32  Unofficial  Christianity 

been."  In  accepting  an  invitation  to  occupy  the 
pulpit  of  the  leading  and  most  militant  non-con- 
formist church  in  England,  the  Dean  of  Durham, 
speaking  as  a  high  official  in  the  Established 
church,  remarks:  "I  hold  it  the  plainest  duty  of 
the  parent  church  of  England  to  draw  closer  and 
make  effective  for  service  the  spiritual  links  which 
unite  the  divided  sections  of  English-speaking 
Christendom  in  an  unexpressed  but  conscious 
unity." 

From  another  quarter  the  approach  may  con- 
ceivably come.  The  American  clergyman, 
recognizing  the  loss  of  efficiency  in  the  present  sys- 
tem, whereby  one  minister  is  required  to  be  an 
expert  in  many  lines,  thereby  proving  inept  in  some 
of  them,  pleads  for  such  specialization  and  dif- 
ferentiation among  the  clergy,  that  the  one  who 
is  most  fitted  for  a  certain  department  of  Chris- 
tian labor  may  devote  his  whole  time  to  that  par- 
ticular work.  Thus  the  one  who  possesses  the 
homiletical  gift  predominantly  shall  not  be  com- 
pelled to  squander  his  time  and  ability  upon  de- 
tails of  administration,  teaching,  pastoral  work,  or 
social  service.  He  shall  be  a  preacher,  supremely 
and  exclusively,  with  the  necessary  time  for  study 
and  the  fusing  of  thought  in  the  fires  of  meditation 
and  feeling.  The  one  who  possesses  peculiar 
teaching  ability  shall  devote  his  entire  time  to  re- 
ligious education  in  the  church  and  community. 


Changeless  Ideals  33 

Thus  the  specialization  shall  continue.  But,  by 
the  nature  of  the  case,  this  involves  a  more  united 
Christian  polity  than  we  have.  There  must  be 
amalgamation,  re-grouping,  elimination,  a  general 
re-arrangement  of  Protestant  divisions,  and  a 
consequent  reduction  of  separate  competing  bodies 
in  every  community  if  this  is  to  be  adopted.  Small 
matters  of  disagreement  in  doctrine  and  polity 
must  be  dropped  overboard  by  common  consent. 
Comity  and  co-operation  must  be  the  watchword 
of  the  hour.  In  the  Middle-West  this  scheme  is 
seriously  and  vigorously  advanced  by  the  pastor  of 
a  large  Baptist  church.  Asked  whether,  in  the 
necessary  abandonment  of  cherished  views  in 
order  to  bring  about  unity,  he  will  be  willing  to 
make  the  form  of  baptism  an  optional  one  as  be- 
tween sprinkling  and  immersion,  he  replies: 
"Whether  we  Baptists  would  make  concessions  in 
order  to  bring  about  the  federation  I  suggest,  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned  personally,  I  should  say 
'yes*  with  great  emphasis,  and  there  are  scores  and 
hundreds  of  younger  men  in  our  denomination  that 
feel  exactly  as  I  do." 

Unofficial  Christianity  of  the  twentieth  century 
is  to  be  characterized  by  ideals,  rather  than  ideas. 
Up  to  the  present  the  latter,  not  the  former,  have 
been  predominant.  Among  the  most  potent  forces 
which  will  rule  Christian  men  and  women  in  this 
age  will  be  sincerity,  loyalty,  and  unity. 


CHAPTER  III 

GETTING  RID  OF  AN  EXCOMMUNICATED  GOD 

THERE  are  two  contrasting  cries  which  come 
up  to  us  out  of  the  heart  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  one  is  the  despairing  utterance  of  a 
God-fearing  man  who  felt  himself  deserted  by  the 
Almighty  in  the  hour  of  his  crisis,  and  whose 
plaintive  lament  was,  "Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I 
might  find  him !"  The  other  was  the  lofty  rhetori- 
cal question  of  a  soul  transfigured, 

"Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit. 

And  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence?" 

The  difference  between  these  two  cries,  is  the 
difference  between  the  query  where  God  is,  and 
the  query  where  God  is  not.  It  is  the  difference 
between  the  faith  that  God  is  somewhere,  and 
that  he  is  everywhere.  The  latter  is  the  word  of 
belief,  but  the  former  is  not  the  word  of 
infidelity.  Both  are  expressions  of  faith  at  dif- 
ferent stages  of  rehgious  development.  The 
former  means  a  God  detached,  remote,  per- 
manently residing  apart  from  his  creation,  with 

34 


Getting  Rid  of  an  Excommunicated  God     35 

arrivals  and  departures  according  to  a  time- 
schedule,  "subject  to  change  without  notice," 
characterized  by  interventions  and  special  provi- 
dences, miracles,  and  theophanies.  The  latter 
means  a  God  at  hand,  indwelling,  permanently 
residing  within  his  creation,  controlling  and  in- 
forming it,  as  a  spirit  dominates  a  body,  continu- 
ally expressing  his  will  in  the  modus  operandi  of 
the  universe,  and  so  glorifying  the  natural  order, 
that  "every  common  bush's  aflame  with  God." 

Granting  that  the  religion  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury must  conceive  of  God  under  the  thought 
forms  of  immanence,  it  remains  to  offer  a  suffi- 
cient apologetic  in  the  face  of  the  partisans  of  the 
theology  of  orthodoxy,  who  may  not  be  acquitted 
of  defending  the  doctrine  of  a  detached  and 
transcendent  God,  and  therefore  one  who  is  more 
somewhere  than  everywhere.  Now  God  cannot 
be  both  wholly  within  his  creation,  and  at  the  same 
time  wholly  without  it.  It  would  be  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms  and  in  fact.  But  just  as  the  true 
Jesus  was  within  the  visible,  physical  body;  so  the 
Almighty  is  within  his  creation.  If  this  latter  is 
the  vital  and  prevailing  view  to-day,  it  may  be  de- 
fended on  two  grounds :  first,  our  relation  to  God 
is  a  moral,  not  a  mechanical  one;  second,  our  rela- 
tion to  him  is  a  natural,  not  a  formal  one. 

I.  Our  Relation  to  God  is  a  Moral,  not  a  Me- 
chanical One.     Our   starting  point  must  be   the 


36  Unofficial  Christianity 

presence  of  certain  inconsistent  and  even  antagon- 
istic elements  in  the  world.  Sin,  evil,  suffering, 
death, — these  have  to  be  accounted  for  without 
being  disloyal  to  a  God  who  is,  by  the  nature  of 
the  case,  both  all-powerful  and  all-good.  Some, 
like  John  Stuart  Mill  and,  more  recently,  George 
Bernard  Shaw,  frankly  wash  their  hands  of  such 
a  hypothetical  God.  The  former  propounds  his 
famous  dilemma, — "Either  God  could  have  pre- 
vented evil  and  did  not, — or  he  would  have 
prevented  evil,  and  could  not.  If  I  accept  the  first, 
I  conclude  that  he  is  not  all  good.  If  I  accept  the 
second,  then  he  is  not  all-powerful."  Having  led 
us  into  the  maze.  Mill  leaves  us  there  to  find  our 
way  out,  although  for  himself,  he  would  frankly 
sacrifice  God's  omnipotence  in  order  to  save  his 
benevolence.  Shaw  cheerfully  chooses  the  same 
alternative,  also,  with  this  quite  Shavianesque  sug- 
gestion, that  God  himself,  with  the  very  best  of 
intentions,  is  only  experimenting  and  approximat- 
ing at  good,  doing  the  best  with  the  material  he 
has  on  hand,  but  impotent  to  get  better  results. 

Now  if  the  majority  of  us  are  constrained  to  re- 
ject both  of  these  explanations,  what  remains? 
The  believer  in  a  non-resident  Deity  answers  that 
evil  has  been  precipitated  into  the  universe  by  an 
all-wise  power  for  inscrutable  but  good  and  suffi- 
cient reasons,  and  that  at  certain  indeterminate 
times  he  will  intervene  in  order  to  give  the  unl- 


Getting  Rid  of  an  Excommunicated  God    37 

verse  a  shove  toward  righteousness,  or  repair  the 
damage  done  by  the  depraved  wills  of  men,  or 
rectify  some  vagrant  tendency  In  nature.  Thus  we 
get  the  "Interventlonallst"  type  of  Christian,  who 
looks  to  see  Satan  bound  and  cast  Into  the  pit,  and 
who  ardently  awaits  the  coming  of  the  great  and 
glorious  day  when  Jesus  shall  return  and  set  up 
his  Kingdom.  In  brief,  the  only  logical  conclusion 
to  which  we  are  driven  if  we  accept  the  premise 
of  a  transcendent  God  who  Is  at  the  same  time 
both  all-powerful  and  all-good,  is  the  mechanical 
one.  But  note  where  that  leads.  Goodness  Is  to  be 
accomplished  by  God  through  coercion.  God  be- 
comes an  infinite  arbiter  with  power  to  compel  his 
decisions.  Man  yields  because  he  must;  God  gets 
what  he  wants,  that  is  all.  The  millennium  is  to 
arrive  because  God  produces  It,  not  because  man  is 
ready  for  It.  It  is  a  kind  of  transcendent  case  of 
*'mlght  makes  right." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  convinced  that  this 
Is  a  moral  universe.  There  is  no  satisfaction  in 
thinking  that  God  by  dint  of  superior  prowess 
Is  going  to  get  what  he  Is  after  in  the  end.  In 
point  of  fact,  man  is  not  made  good,  he  becomes 
good.  For  God  to  arrive  from  without  periodi- 
cally and  by  special  dispensation  repair  the  uni- 
verse, would  simply  mean  that  he  could  make  men 
behave  themselves, — it  would  not  mean  that  men 
were   becoming  good.      Even   so,    a   magisterial 


38  Unofficial  Christianity 

disciplinarian  might  interfere  to  compose  the  vio- 
lence of  a  turbulent  company,  and  by  dint  of  physi- 
cal prowess  or  direful  threat  produce  an  appear- 
ance of  calm.  But  there  can  be  no  real  solution 
of  evil  until  man  desires  to  be  right.  Omnipotence 
cannot  do  more  than  make  men  refrain  from  evil, 
man  must  choose  to  be  good  himself. 

This  suggests  what  really  has  happened.  God, 
ever  with  us,  ever  the  indwelling  spirit  of  the 
visible  world,  ever  has  willed  good  to  us.  As  free 
spirits  derived  from  him,  we  are  allowed  to  accept 
his  good  intentions  or  not  as  we  choose.  Anything 
short  of  that  would  mean  an  artificial,  toy  universe 
for  God  to  play  with.  In  the  clash  of  wills,  hu- 
man and  divine,  God's  sometimes  goes  down. 
"Gipsy"  Smith  used  to  say:  "God  can  open  the 
blind  eye,  or  unstop  the  deaf  ear,  or  paint  a  lily- 
bell,  or  form  a  dewdrop,  or  create  the  trill  of 
the  bird-song,  or  open  the  gates  of  the  morning 
without  a  creak  of  their  hinges,  or  set  an  atom 
swinging  in  the  sunshine,  with  all  its  rhythm  and 
poetry,  as  much  as  in  the  movement  of  a  constella- 
tion; but  he  can  save  no  man  against  his  will."  To 
become  good,  man  must  will  to  be  good.  He  may 
overthrow  God's  good  intentions  for  him.  But  the 
end  of  God's  defeat  is  the  beginning  of  man's  edu- 
cation. The  problem  of  a  moral  universe  is  to 
bring  it  to  pass  that  man  shall  choose  to  follow 
after  good,  not  that  man  shall  be  compelled  to 


Getting  Rid  of  an  Excommunicated  God     39 

make  good.  It  Is  when  we  ask,  seek,  knock,  that 
the  normal  relations  are  established.  As  Victor 
Hugo  put  It,  "Nothing  Is  so  stupid  as  conquering, 
the  true  glory  is  In  convincing."  And  God  Is  not 
stupid  enough  merely  to  overwhelm  us,  he  must 
persuade  us. 

This  Is  the  real  problem  of  the  earthly  home. 
Order,  obedience,  thrift,  must  be  maintained 
through  the  voluntary  acquiescence  of  the  children. 
The  question  Is  not,  as  an  American  educator  has 
phrased  It,  "I  will  conquer  that  child,  no  matter 
what  It  may  cost  him;  but,  I  will  help  that  child 
to  conquer  himself,  no  matter  what  It  may  cost 
me."  The  discipline  of  life  Is  another  name  for 
the  Inevitable  trouble  that  comes  to  a  man  when 
he  gets  the  best  of  God  for  the  time  being.  In 
the  long-run,  years,  centuries,  ages,  man  learns  that 
he  pays  too  heavy  a  price  to  have  his  own  way. 
Chastened  and  instructed,  he  will  habituate  him- 
self to  a  life  In  harmony  with  divine  purpose  and 
goodness.  He  will  love  truth  and  right  for  their 
own  sake.  He  will  become  good  of  his  own  voli- 
tion, and  reap  the  peaceable  fruits  thereof. 

II.  Our  Relation  to  God  is  a  Natural,  not  a 
Formal  One.  The  theology  of  orthodoxy  always 
has  taken  Its  terminology  and  analogies  from  the 
social  and  political  complex  of  its  day.  Monarchy, 
aristocracy,  feudalism,  democracy,  are  all  so  many 
moulds  into  which  has  run  the  molten  thought  of 


40  Unofficial  Christianity 

each  age  about  God.  The  Almighty  has  been  an 
absolute  monarch  and  man  has  been  an  unruly  sub- 
ject. The  problem  then  becomes  one  of  satisfying 
outraged  majesty.  Or,  God  has  been  a  judge  and 
man  a  culprit,  and  the  problem  then  has  resolved 
itself  into  the  vindication  of  broken  law.  Or,  God 
has  been  a  creditor  and  man  a  debtor,  and  the 
problem  then  becomes  one  of  paying  a  commercial 
obligation.  In  consequence,  we  have  had  theories 
of  the  atonement  whereby  Christ  did  gratuitous 
things  for  man  which  put  him  right  with  God. 
These  theories  are  based  upon  ideas  of  God  de- 
rived from  passing  human  communal  and  govern- 
mental relationships.  They  were  merely  formal, 
forensic,  artificial.  A  subject  may  remove  from 
the  kingdom  and  change  his  citizenship.  A  culprit 
may  obtain  a  different  venue  and  thus  come  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  another  judge.  A  debtor  may 
go  into  bankruptcy  and  thus  escape  the  payment  of 
his  debts.  The  point  to  be  observed  is  this :  in  all 
these  relationships,  God  and  man  have  been 
brought  together  in  ways  which  are  not  vital  and 
inevitable  and  inescapable,  but  on  the  contrary  are 
artificial,  humanly  arranged,  and  purely  hypotheti- 
cal. The  only  relation  between  the  two  which  can 
be  true,  is  that  which  postulates  a  permanent,  es- 
sential, and  spiritual  affinity.  God  was  not  in  Jesus 
Christ  as  a  king,  or  judge,  or  creditor,  or  any 
other  political,  judicial,  or  economic  functionary. 


Getting  Rid  of  an  Excommunicated  God     41 

He  was  in  Jesus  Christ  as  a  revealed  Father.  His 
deaHngs  with  us  are  domestic  and  paternal,  not 
commercial,  forensic,  or  governmental.  Only  the 
former  relation  preserves  our  sense  of  kindly  inti- 
macy. With  a  father  we  may  have  communica- 
tion; from  king,  judge,  creditor,  we  receive  only 
excommunication.  All  arrangements  made  for 
atonement  of  guilt,  smack  of  formality  and  arti- 
ficiality, as  if  we  are  being  haled  into  an  infinite 
court  before  an  infinite  bar.  But  if  we  are  within 
the  eternal  precincts  of  God's  home,  then  atone- 
ment becomes  not  a  formal  expression  of  law,  but 
a  natural  expression  of  love.  The  only  thing  for 
which  we  human  fathers  wait  in  order  to  forgive, 
is  a  voluntary  confession  of  guilt,  and  a  mani- 
festation of  contrition  on  the  part  of  the  one 
whose  act  has  broken  the  domestic  peace  and  har- 
mony. When  such  evidence  of  penitence  appears, 
the  ordinary  father  requires  nothing  more  in  order 
gladly  to  restore  the  offender  to  the  place  he  had 
lost  by  virtue  of  his  own  act.  Now,  either  we  are 
all  wrong,  and  should  demand  an  innocent  victim 
upon  which  to  inflict  the  punishment  belonging  to 
the  offender,  before  said  offender  may  be  for- 
given; or  else,  if  we  are  right,  the  theology  of 
orthodoxy  with  its  substitutionary  blood  atonement 
is  all  wrong.  If  our  relation  with  God  is  one  of 
natural  aflinity,  it  would  appear  as  though  he 
needed  nothing  but  our  contrition,  to  cause  his  for- 


42  Unofficial  Christianity 

giveness  to  occur. 

One  final  consideration  leads  us  to  believe  in  the 
natural  rather  than  the  formal  relation.  In  all 
the  various  guises  under  which  the  latter  theory 
is  presented,  it  is  not  necessary  for  God  to  feel 
anything  approaching  affection  in  the  entire  trans- 
action. The  king  whose  outraged  majesty  is  satis- 
fied; the  judge  whose  regard  for  violated  law  is 
justified;  and  the  creditor  whose  bad  debts  are  all 
paid, — maintain  an  attitude  of  cold  and  severe  dis- 
approval of  the  offender,  which,  according  to  the 
analogies,  need  never  change  into  anything  even 
approximating  affection,  when  "the  great  transac- 
tion's done."  But  the  kernel  of  the  Christian  rev- 
elation of  God,  is  love.  Only  that  process  of  read- 
justment between  man  and  God  which  is  rooted  in 
love,  can  be  true.  The  monarchical,  the  juridical, 
the  commercial,  are  strong  in  logic,  but  weak  in 
love.  They  are  therefore  totally  inadequate.  But 
the  domestic,  or  paternal  is,  by  the  nature  of  the 
case,  a  love  relation.  It  comes  closer,  on  the 
whole,  to  account  satisfactorily  for  the  way  that 
Christ  re-establishes  harmony,  than  any  other. 
Only  when  the  father  enters  into  the  suffering  of 
the  son,  and  is  cut  to  the  quick  by  the  same  blade 
of  transgression  which  has  wounded  the  soul  of 
the  sinner,  is  the  latter  brought  to  see  the  true 
meaning  of  his  sin.  No  forensic,  artificial,  or 
logically  fabricated  edifice  of  a  coldly  calculated 


Getting  Rid  of  an  Excommunicated  God     43 

substitutionary  atonement  can  permanently  chasten 
and  regenerate  the  perverted  mind  of  the  world. 
God  will  still  be  excommunicant.  Christ  will  still 
be  the  innocent  victim  of  outraged  divine  dignity. 
The  character  of  the  Deity  will  still  suffer  by  con- 
trast with  the  best  of  human  parenthood.  The 
human  analogy  of  personal  contact  between  father 
and  son,  and  forgiveness  on  the  condition  of  re- 
pentance, will  annihilate  that  scheme  of  salvation 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  God  to  do  what  he 
would  like  to  do,  unless  Jesus  does  something  first; 
and  bases  forgiveness,  not  upon  personal  contri- 
tion alone,  but  also  upon  the  intellectual  accept- 
ance by  the  sinner  of  a  divine  scrapegoat  upon 
whom  all  the  sins  of  all  time  have  been  heaped. 

No  explanation  of  God  is  true  which  makes  him 
less  loving  and  merciful  than  the  best  of  human 
fathers.  No  theory  of  God  will  work  which  ex- 
communicates him  as  spiritual  renewer  and  re- 
deemer. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   USE  AND  MISUSE  OF  THE  BIBLE 

IT  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  spend  time  prov- 
ing that  the  value  of  an  instrument  depends  al- 
together upon  the  use  which  is  made  of  it.  A  sul- 
phur match  may  kindle  a  fire  which  will  warm  back 
to  life  and  service  a  freezing  saint  of  God;  or  it 
may  start  a  conflagration  which  will  lay  waste  a 
city  and  burn  to  death  scores  of  people. 

When  we  approach  the  Bible,  the  trouble  with 
many  is  that  they  refuse  to  accept  the  premise 
that  the  book  is  a  mere  vehicle  of  truth.  To  them 
it  is  truth  itself,  and  as  such,  like  a  potent  charm, 
it  simply  needs  to  be  applied  in  order  to  produce 
miraculous  results.  The  difficulty  with  this  posi- 
tion is  that  in  order  to  hold  it,  one  must  be  mole- 
blind  to  facts.  Intellectual  honesty  inevitably  will 
compel  one  to  abandon  this  thesis. 

There  are  three  assumptions  which  absolutely 
vitiate  any  defensible  attitude  toward  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  which  the  religion  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury must  destroy  root  and  branch. 

I.  The  Bible  is  a  Book  of  Equal  Moral  and 
44 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible       45 

Religious  Authority  Throughout.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  are  dealing  with  a  literature  which  reflects 
the  spiritual  culture  of  many  ages.  There  is  no 
unity  or  homogeneity  In  it.  There  are  contradic- 
tions, discrepancies,  irreconcllables  in  It.  Jephtha 
keeps  a  holy  vow  and  slays  his  daughter.  But  a 
prophet,  centuries  later,  declares  that  a  man  "shall 
not  give  the  fruit  of  his  body  for  the  sin  of  his 
soul,"  and  that  what  God  desires  is  justice,  mercy 
and  a  humble  demeanor  before  him.  Jacob  and 
David,  exiled  from  home,  are  convinced  that  they 
are  leaving  God  behind  them  as  well,  and  going 
out  to  lands  ruled  by  other  deities.  But  a  Psalmist 
asks  the  rhetorical  question,  "Whither  shall  I  go 
from  thy  spirit  and  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy 
presence?"  An  ancient  law  declared  that  God 
"visited  the  sins  of  the  Fathers  upon  the  children 
unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation."  But 
a  later  Hebrew  teacher  flatly  contradicted 
this  when  he  asserted,  "The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die.  The  son  shall  not 
bear  the  iniquity  of  the  father,  neither  shall 
the  father  bear  the  iniquity  of  the  son."  The  Jew- 
ish historian  records  that  when  David  took  a 
census  of  the  people,  he  was  tempted  of  God;  a 
later  chronicler,  in  the  interest  of  orthodox  theol- 
ogy, modifies  this  by  making  Satan,  not  the  deity, 
the  tempter.  The  wholesale  murders  of  Jehu,  in 
ridding  the  earth  of  the  dynasty  of  Omri,  were 


46  Unofficial  Christianity 

approved  by  God,  according  to  the  writer  of 
Kings;  but  later  prophets  unsparingly  denounced 
Jehu,  and  attributed  the  current  national  disasters 
to  God's  judgment  because  of  those  crimes.  In 
the  earliest  times,  God  was  worshiped  under  dif- 
ferent names  at  many  local  shrines;  then  worship 
was  centralized  at  Jerusalem,  and  shrine  worship 
was  forbidden;  finally  Jesus  announced  that 
"neither  in  this  mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem  shall 
ye  worship  the  father,"  thus  making  religion 
ubiquitous. 

Accordingly,  there  are  very  different  levels  of 
ethical  and  religious  ideas  in  Scripture.  Its  litera- 
ture ranges  from  ruthless  injunctions  of  indis- 
criminate slaughter  of  enemies,  to  God-like  man- 
dates to  love  and  forgive  one's  foes.  Guilty  and 
innocent  are  involved  in  punishment.  Slavery, 
concubinage,  drunkenness,  blood  revenge,  lust,  and 
murder  not  only  find  place  in  its  pages,  but  if  not 
tacitly  defended,  are  only  mildly  rebuked.  Com- 
pare with  these  the  noblest  utterances  of  the  great 
prophets  and  Jesus,  touching  cleanness  of  heart, 
fidelity,  chastity,  forgiveness,  and  magnanimity, 
and  it  will  be  perceived  how  utterly  impossible  it 
is  to  defend  the  premise  that  the  Bible  is  of  equal 
moral  and  spiritual  value  and  authority  through- 
out. 

II.  A  Book,  All  Parts  of  which  Apply  to  Us. 
This   second  position   of  those  who  misuse  the 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible        47 

Bible  is  equally  demoralizing.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  each  man  who  put  pen  to  parchment  wrote 
with  an  absorbing  interest  in  the  events  of  his 
own  day  and  people.  There  is  no  shadow  of 
justification  in  the  belief  that  they  expected  eternity 
to  be  upon  their  productions.  Much  of  what  they 
discussed  had  no  existence  beyond  the  hour  In 
which  these  men  lived.  But  the  allegorizing  and 
*'proof-text"  habits  of  grubbing,  sophomoric  in- 
terpreters, have  vitiated  sound  Biblical  truth,  lo, 
these  many  years.  Out  of  the  arsenal  of  Scripture, 
men  have  brought  clumsy,  archaic,  and  utterly 
useless  weapons  for  the  slaughter  of  the  hosts  of 
righteousness,  or  the  defense  of  citadels  of  im- 
morality. Polygamy  has  been  approved  because 
Abraham  and  David  divided  their  connubial  affec- 
tions among  several  wives.  Witches  were  burned 
in  New  England  and  authority  therefore  was 
drawn  from  the  impregnable  rock  of  Scripture, 
which  declares,  "Suffer  not  a  witch  to  live."  Negro 
slavery  based  Its  claim  upon  the  curse  of  God  pro- 
nounced upon  Ham.  The  moderate  drinker  re- 
fers you  convincingly  to  Paul's  kindly  suggestion 
to  Timothy  that  he  "take  a  little  wine  for  his 
stomach's  sake."  The  militarist  knows  that  he  Is 
Christian  because  the  Master  said,  "I  came  not  to 
send  peace  but  a  sword."  And  the  pacifist  retorts 
that  he  is  equally  Christian  because  of  the  Lord's 
Injunction  to  turn  the  other  cheek  when  smitten. 


48  Unofficial  Christianity 

Tyrants  always  have  attempted  to  crush  move- 
ments for  freedom  by  quoting  Paul's  word,  "Let 
every  soul  be  in  subjection  unto  the  higher  powers, 
for  the  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God",  and 
the  same  great  Apostle  is  made  sponsor  for  the 
theory  of  the  subordination  of  woman,  because  he 
once  said,  "the  husband  is  the  head  of  the  wife". 

If  the  Bible  ever  ainywhere  claimed  for  itself 
that  it  applied  with  equal  validity  to  all  ages  and 
social  conditions,  there  might  be  some  reason  for 
the  misuse  to  which  it  has  been  put.  But  it  makes 
no  such  claim.  It  is  not  like  one  of  those  slot 
machines  into  which  a  coin  may  be  slipped  and 
from  which  a  card  may  be  extracted,  telHng  one 
his  fortune,  giving  him  his  weight,  and  in  general 
answering  the  dearest  question  of  his  heart.  On 
the  contrarjr,  every  Bible  verse  must  be  read  in 
the  light  of  its  context,  the  stage  of  religious  de- 
velopment reached  at  the  time  it  was  written ;  the 
national  hope,  glory,  fear,  or  danger  which  in- 
spired the  author;  the  temperamental  prejudices 
which  possessed  him;  and  the  mental  and  moral 
limitations  under  which  he  labored.  It  is  probable 
that  not  one  word  In  a  thousand  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  scarcely  a  quarter  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  penned  with  the  remotest  idea  that 
future  generations  would  ever  appeal  to  them  as 
authoritative. 

III.     A   Book  which   Contains  All  of  God's 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible        49 

Revelation.  Nothing  really  has  damaged  the 
Bible  more  than  this  baseless  assumption.  It  has 
caused  the  long  and  bootless  and  quite  disgraceful 
war  with  science.  It  has  ahenated  multitudes  of 
reverent,  truth-loving  people  from  it  because  it 
has  seemed  to  arrogate  to  itself  unwarranted 
omniscience.  It  has  retarded  the  growth  of  an 
Intelligent  ministry  by  casting  suspicion  upon 
scholarship.  It  has  perpetuated  that  baneful  dis- 
tinction between  the  sacred  and  the  secular.  It 
has  put  a  time-limit  upon  the  revelatory  powers  of 
the  Almighty.  It  has  made  a  literature  of  relig- 
ious feeling  Into  an  official  and  Infallible  textbook 
on  biology,  geology,  anthropology,  sociology  and 
many  other  cognate  sciences.  It  has  imprisoned 
the  free  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion  within  the 
lids  of  the  Bible  and  has  refused  to  permit  it  to 
step  one  foot  outside.  It  has  erected  a  dogma  of 
Inspiration  which  has  excommunicated  from  re- 
ligious literature  much  of  genuine  spiritual  value. 
It  is  utterly  indefensible  on  any  and  every  ground. 
Even  the  Psalmist  recognized  that  the  Scriptures 
did  not  contain  all  the  truth  about  God.  "The 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God.  .  .  .  Whither 
shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit,  and  whither  shall  I  flee 
from  thy  presence?"  The  flower  In  the  crannied 
wall,  the  fossil  in  the  buried  rock,  the  tidal  wave 
of  racial  immigration,  and  the  faith  in  the  heart 
of  a  child,  all  reveal  God.    The  Almighty  was  not 


50  Unofficial  Christianity 

struck  dumb  when  the  canon  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  closed.  Paul  enjoyed  the  confidence  of 
God  no  more  than  many  another  later  Christian 
Apostle.  The  greatest  prophecy  of  the  book  it- 
self is  that  "when  the  Spirit  of  Truth  is  come,  he 
shall  guide  you  into  all  truth."  The  splendid  ex- 
periences which  God  has  vouchsafed  to  hi^ 
prophets  and  chosen  people  are  to  be  enriched  and 
amplified  by  what  his  universe  of  mind  and  mat- 
ter reveals  to-day. 

In  the  right  use  of  the  Bible  there  must  be  the 
exercise  of: 

I.  Selection.  There  Is  more  in  the  Bible  than 
we  need.  Only  the  antiquarian,  theologian,  stu- 
dent of  comparative  religions,  literary  critic  and 
preacher  have  use  for  the  Bible  from  cover  to 
cover.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  a 
little  Bible  within  the  big  Bible.  Instinc- 
tively we  select  and  discriminate  In  our 
reading  of  the  Book.  We  prefer  John  to 
JudgeSj  Luke  to  Chronicles,  Psalms  to  Esther,  and 
Isaiah  to  Numbers.  Thus  we  really  are  doing 
what  the  old  ecumenical  councils  did:  we  are  mak- 
ing for  ourselves  the  canon  of  Scriptures.  This 
habit  Is  a  sound  one.  It  arises  from  the  Instinct 
that  the  measure  of  the  Bible's  value  for  us  is  its 
power  to  unlock  the  mind,  warm  the  heart,  quicken 
the  conscience,  and  train  the  will.  Not  the  canon- 
Icity  of  a  book  makes  it  meaningful,  but  Its  content. 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible        51 

The  question  is  not  who  made  it  for  me,  but  what 
does  it  make  out  of  me?  Not  "was  somebody 
else  inspired  who  wrote  it?"  but,  "am  I  inspired 
when  I  read  it?"  Answering  these  questions  hon- 
estly, we  are  led  to  seek  our  spiritual  nourishment 
here  and  there  within  the  Book,  not  impartially 
everywhere  from  cover  to  cover. 

2.  Reason.  The  time  has  passed  when  we 
are  afraid  to  "prove  all  things"  that  we  may  "hold 
fast  that  which  is  good."  Submitting  truth  to  the 
test  of  reason  will  only  establish  the  truth,  for 
truth  is  reasonable.  We  have  "a  reasonable  faith 
and  a  reasonable  service."  The  evidence  of 
reasonableness  is  the  total  affirmative  response  of 
the  entire  man.  Does  a  certain  belief  awaken  the 
favorable  answer  of  thought  and  feeling  and  in- 
tuition and  will,  all  blended  and  merged?  Does 
it  mobilize  all  the  forces  of  personality?  Does  it 
evoke  the  assent  of  the  deepest  voice  within?  If 
it  does,  it  is  a  reasonable  belief.  But  If  there  still 
be  doubt,  the  questioned  belief  may  be  put  to  the 
test  of  value-producing  pov/er.  A  reasonable  eco- 
nomics is  one  which  is  of  value  to  civil  govern- 
ment; a  reasonable  therapeutics  is  one  which  will 
cure  the  sick;  a  reasonable  educational  system  is 
one  which  really  educates;  and  a  reasonable  re- 
ligion Is  one  which  produces  character.  Reason  is 
the  handmaid  of  faith,  not  its  assassin.  It  Is 
reasonable  for  a  man  to  believe  in  an  orderly  uni- 


52  Unofficial  Christianity 

verse,  a  benevolent  Deity,  a  continuance  of  per- 
sonality after  death,  an  optimistic  view  of  life, 
the  love  of  his  mother  and  the  fidelity  of  his  child. 
The  broadest,  fairest,  best-tested  view  of  exist- 
ence will  verify  these  affirmations.  The  deepest 
and  best  within  him  assents  to  these  proposals ;  and 
living  by  virtue  of  their  grace  makes  for  a  co- 
herent and  value-full  universe. 

When  we  approach  the  Bible,  we  do  so  as  ra- 
tional beings.  Much  within  its  pages  neither 
evokes  the  total  favorable  response  of  personality, 
nor,  tested  by  experience,  makes  for  life  value. 
Such  parts,  a  reasonable  faith  would  reject.  But 
much  of  it  is  as  "deep  calling  unto  deep."  It 
awakens  the  dormant  spirit  of  man,  meets  his 
moral  and  spiritual  needs,  creates  character  when 
given  free  course  in  him,  and  becomes  for  him  a 
reasonable  setting-forth  of  divine  truth.  The 
authority  of  the  Bible  resides  only  in  such  por- 
tions as  call  forth  this  total  affirmative  response  of 
man's  personality.  A  mere  ipse  dixit  may  compel 
obedience,  but  it  will  not  carry  conviction,  unless 
its  reasonableness  is  recognized. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  authority  of 
truth  rests  upon  the  capacity  of  man  to  assimilate 
it.  The  Bible  has  been  master  of  men  because  it 
has  said  so  many  things  which  man's  soul  has  been 
fitted  to  appropriate.  There  has  been  no  coercion 
in  the  real  process  of  achieving  supremacy.     The 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible        53 

authority  of  the  Bible  does  not  depend  upon  any 
claims  to  infallibility,  upon  any  dogma  of  inspira- 
tion. Rather  it  rests  upon  the  fact  that  "man  is 
incurably  religious",  and  setting  forth  the  things  of 
religion,  it  awakens  the  spontaneous  "amen"  in 
the  soul  of  man.  \Yhen  God's  will  is  written  upon 
the  pages  of  a  book,  it  finds  itself  duplicated  upon 
the  tables  of  men's  hearts,  and  in  this  fact  resides 
Its  authority.  "Behold,  the  days  come,  salth  the 
Lord,  when  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts, 
and  in  their  hearts  will  I  write  it."  If  there  were 
no  counterpart  of  the  divine  within  us,  to  react  to 
the  divine  without  us,  the  sound  of  the  latter  would 
be  as  clanging  brass  and  tinkling  cymbals ! 

3.  A  Christian  Spirit.  A  chain  may  be  no 
stronger  than  its  weakest  link;  but  the  Bible  is  as 
strong  as  its  strongest  part.  AnH  that  part  is  the 
Christian  part.  The  presence  of  Christ  in  the 
Bible  is  the  supreme  fact.  It  might  be  said  to  be 
the  only  important  fact.  Every  inconsistency 
should  be  interpreted  by  the  rule  of  the  higher, 
not  lower,  revelation;  every  contradiction  should 
be  resolved  In  the  light  of  the  Christian,  not  pre- 
Christian  or  non-Christian  ideal.  Much  in  the  Old 
Testament  Is  of  value,  even  though  it  Is  not  dis- 
tinctly in  accord  with  the  highest  ethical  standards, 
because  it  provides  a  strong  background  from 
which  the  great  picture  of  the  religion  of  the  spirit 
in  Jesus  Christ  stands  forth  In  heroic  proportions. 


54  Unofficial  Christianity 

It  gives  us  an  insight  into  the  habits  of  mind  of 
the  forbears  of  our  Christian  faith,  and  supplies 
us  with  the  grace  of  sympathy.  It  indicates  the 
continuity  of  that  growth  of  religious  life  which 
the  Jews,  In  common  with  all  other  races,  shared. 
It  thus  commends  the  whole  process  of  develop- 
ment In  spiritual  culture  as  something  more  than 
national,  and  links  the  inner  life  of  many  peoples 
together. 

But  to-day,  we  are  not  under  law,  but  grace. 
Christ,  not  Moses,  Is  the  genius  of  the  Bible.  It 
Is  his  spirit  which  Is  to  be  our  criterion  and  none 
other.  We  may  gain  a  vivid  total  Impression  of 
Jesus.  About  the  salient  points  In  his  character 
we  may  agree.  We  may  come  to  view  life  "under 
the  Christ  aspect."  When  we  have  done  all  this, 
let  that  Christ  Ideal  govern  our  Scriptural  In- 
terpretation, correcting  all  which  is  both  Immature 
and  unworthy.  "If  Paul  had  been  told  that  he 
would  be  talked  of  as  of  equal  authority  with  the 
Lord,  he  would  have  burned  his  letters,"  pun- 
gently  remarks  the  late  Professor  Clarke.  And 
Paul  would  be  anathema  In  his  own  eyes,  were  he 
asked  to  substitute,  for  twentieth  century  Amer- 
ica, his  own  strongly  marked  Jewish  Interpreta- 
tion of  Jesus. 

We  may  rest  secure,  then,  upon  the  hidden  and 
enduring  spiritual  foundations  of  Scripture.  We 
know  what  God  has  revealed,  because  God  has 


The  Use  and  Misuse  of  the  Bible        55 

gifted  us  with  the  faculty  whereby  we  recognize 
it.  We  may  leave  the  theme,  using  the  noble 
words  of  Sabatier: 

"It  is  not  because  the  Christian  religion  is  in 
the  Bible  that  it  is  true.  It  is  because  it  is  in  it- 
self true  that  when  you  find  it  in  the  Bible  you  say 
that  the  Bible  teaches  the  truth." 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  WORLD,  THE  FLESH  AND  THE  DEVIL 

ONE  of  the  most  sublime  and  unruffled  con- 
fidences of  Jesus  was  that  goodness  could  not 
only  take  care  of  itself,  but  at  the  same  time  make 
more  goodness.  The  leaven  might  lose  its  iden- 
tity, but  in  the  process  it  vitalized  the  dead  dough. 
The  seed  might  be  disintegrated  In  the  soil,  but 
from  it  came  a  whole  tree  full  of  more  seeds.  The 
talent  might  disappear  in  trade,  but  from  the 
transaction  there  would  result  two,  five,  or  ten 
more  talents.  The  strong  man  fully  armed  can 
not  only  keep  his  own  goods  in  safety,  but  he 
can,  by  defeating  the  marauder,  make  the  safety 
of  the  goods  of  the  public  more  sure.  The  light 
on  the  lampstand  not  only  shines  itself,  but  it 
makes  dark  corners  bright;  the  salt  not  only  has 
savor  in  itself,  but  it  preserves  that  with  which  It 
comes  in  contact.  In  a  multitude  of  ways  Jesus 
illustrates  this  truth:  that  goodness  can  not  only 
keep  Itself  Intact,  but  can,  by  contagion,  make  its 
environing  envelop  good  as  well.  Bushnell  uses 
a  quaint  phrase  to  express  this  truth.    ''The  church 

56 


The  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil     57 

is  to  possess  the  world  by  the  outpopulating  power 
of  the  Christian  stock."  There  is  virtue  enough 
in  Christian  people  not  only  to  preserve  them  from 
being  spoiled  from  contact  with  evil,  but  also,  and 
more,  to  make  them  reproduce  goodness  by  con- 
tagion. 

But  in  many  quarters  and  for  many  generations 
a  contrary  view  has  prevailed.  Goodness'  chief 
business  was  to  quarantine  itself  against  the  devil- 
ishness  of  the  world.  The  church  was  an  ark  of 
safety,  a  city  of  refuge,  a  strong  fortress  of  de- 
fense against  the  spiritual  hosts  of  wickedness. 
Thus  the  church  became  the  official  patron  and 
custodian  of  goodness,  which  was  to  be  preserved 
only  by  keeping  its  skirts  clear  of  the  contaminat- 
ing influence  of  evil. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  viewpoint  of  Jesus 
would  indicate  that  goodness  Is  a  therapeutic  to  be 
applied  to  social  disease,  an  antiseptic  to  arrest 
moral  putrefaction,  a  prophylactic  to  destroy  the 
bacteria  of  sin,  a  leaven  to  vitalize  the  lump  of  so- 
ciety, a  healthy  atmosphere  breathing  through  the 
miasma  of  the  world,  a  spiritual  free  trade,  pene- 
trating every  portion  of  the  habitable  globe.  The 
one  absolutely  essential  factor  In  the  relation  be- 
tween goodness  and  evil,  is  unhindered  inter- 
course between  the  two.  Goodness  is  for  the  pur- 
pose of  world  sanitation.  It  Is  to  establish  a  moral 
hygiene.     It  is  to  save  the  world  by  becoming  a 


58  Unofficial  Christianity 

part  of  it. 

Two  considerations  are  before  us. 

I.  The  True  Alignment.  What  this  is  has 
been  hinted  already.  Not  a  concrete  unified,  spir- 
itually superior  organization  known  as  the 
"church",  versus  an  unregenerate,  heterogeneous 
and  immoral  mass  outside,  known  as  the  "world". 
Rather  it  is  the  spirit  of  love  and  helpfulness 
under  the  direction  of  Christ,  versus  the  spirit  of 
hate  and  selfishness  in  despite  of  Christ.  The 
"world",  as  has  been  aptly  observed,  is  "society 
organized  apart  from  God".  There  are  not  two 
hemispheres,  one  of  which  is  inhabited  by  good 
and  is  called  "the  church",  and  the  other  of  which 
is  inhabited  by  evil  and  is  called  "the  world". 
George  Bernard  Shaw,  in  a  preface  to  one  of  his 
plays,  pungently  has  put  the  case.  "The  first  com- 
mon mistake  to  get  rid  of  is  that  mankind  consists 
of  a  great  mass  of  religious  people,  and  a  few 
eccentric  atheists.  It  consists  of  a  huge  mass  of 
worldly  people  and  a  small  percentage  of  persons 
deeply  interested  in  religion  and  concerned  about 
their  own  souls  and  other  people's.  We  pass  our 
lives  among  people  who,  whatever  creeds  they  may 
repeat,  and  in  whatever  temples  they  may  avouch 
their  respectability  and  wear  their  Sunday  clothes, 
have  robust  consciences,  and  hunger  and  thirst, 
not  after  righteousness,  but  for  rich  feeding  and 
comfort  and  social  position  and  attractive  mates 


The  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil      59 

and  ease  and  respect  and  consideration;  in  short 
for  love  and  money." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  Shaw  has  only  too  justly 
caricatured  the  church  here.  But  he  has  done  us 
this  service,  that  he  cynically  has  called  our  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  true  alignment  is  not  be- 
tween an  organization  known  as  "the  church"  and 
all  outside,  known  popularly  as  "the  world,  the 
flesh  and  the  devil".  Rather,  let  It  be  repeated 
the  struggle  is  ever  between  the  Incarnate  spirit 
of  love  and  service  under  the  direction  of  Christ, 
wherever  manifest;  and  the  Incarnate  spirit  of 
hate  and  selfishness  in  despite  of  Christ,  wherever 
manifest.  In  the  words  of  Graham  Taylor: 
"The  world  can  no  longer  be  considered  as  a 
sphere  of  human  life  separate  from  or  antagonis- 
tic to  the  church.  Too  much  religion  has  gotten 
out  of  the  church  Into  the  world  to  allow  us  to 
think  of  all  the  good  being  In  the  church,  and  the 
world  as  being  nothing  but  evil." 

The  religion  of  the  twentieth  century  will  In- 
sist, as  never  before,  that  he  who  Is  not  against 
Christ  is  for  him;  and  that  by  a  man's  fruits  shall 
he  be  known.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  have 
stern  words  for  those  who  cry  "We  be  Abraham's 
seed",  and  do  not  the  works  of  Abraham,  resting 
their  hope  upon  the  dead  merits  of  a  spiritual  pedi- 
gree, rather  than  upon  the  quick  virtue  of  a 
righteous  performance.    The  spirit  of  "the  world" 


6o  Unofficial  Christianity 

must  be  exorcised  from  the  church,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  Christ  must  be  recognized  in  the  world,  be- 
fore the  Kingdom  in  its  right  proportions  can  be 
defined.  For  the  Kingdom  is  greater  than  the 
church,  and  its  citizens  are  found  without  the 
church.  Either  the  church  must  expand  and  take 
in  the  Kingdom,  or  the  Kingdom  will  come  into  its 
own  without  the  church.  If  there  are  all  too  many 
who  cry  ''Lord,  Lord,"  and  do  not  the  works  of 
their  Father,  there  are  a  growing  host  who,  with- 
out spiritual  banner,  sign  or  symbol,  practise  the 
deeds  of  Christ.  Of  whom  it  may  once  again  be 
said,  "They  are  not  far  from  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven." 

After  the  true  alignment,  comes: 

IL  The  True  Task.  Goodness  is  inherently 
stronger  than  evil.  There  is  in  it  the  germ  of  a 
spiritual  contagion.  It  is  more  than  the  posses- 
sion of  a  defensive  armor.  It  is  more  than  having 
a  stoutness  and  robustness  of  character  sufficient 
to  withstand  malign  forces.  Goodness  has  re- 
productive as  well  as  self-defensive  powers.  It  is 
dynamic,  not  static.  It  is  not  a  monk;  it  is  a  cru- 
sader. Confronted  with  specific  evil,  goodness 
ahke  preserves  itself  and  destroys  its  foe  by  con- 
tact with  the  world,  not  by  withdrawal  from  it. 
Almost  it  might  be  said  that  the  only  hope  for  im- 
proving the  health  of  goodness,  is  its  stern  struggle 
with  evil. 


The  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil     6i 

The  practical  way  in  which  the  religion  of  the 
twentieth  century  is  going  to  deal  with  evil  is  not 
far  to  seek.  There  are  some  forms  of  human 
activity  which,  by  common  consent,  are  perceived 
to  have  such  a  preponderating  weight  of  un- 
adulterated evil,  that,  like  a  thoroughly  rotten 
fruit,  there  is  no  hope  to  save  them.  Enlightened 
sentiment,  under  moral  tutelage,  has  relegated 
them  to  the  scrapheap.  Such  are  legalized  prosti- 
tution, state-protected  liquor  traffic,  state-main- 
tained lotteries,  chattel  slavery,  and  piracy 
on  the  high  seas.  But  other  forms  of 
activity  are  evil  in  their  operation  only 
because  a  certain  modicum  of  taint  or  poison 
inheres  in  them.  Through  abuse  of  the  principle 
of  moderation  or  through  association  with  forces 
themselves  irredeemable,  these  activities  which  are 
not  intrinsically  demoralizing,  have  become  so- 
cially indefensible.  Obviously  the  task  of  Chris- 
tianity is  to  strain  off  the  virus,  leaving  the  sound 
body.  It  is  common  to  say  that  certain  amuse- 
ments "leave  a  bad  taste  in  your  mouth."  Walt 
Mason,  the  preacher  with  the  biggest  American 
audience,  has  put  it  thus: 

"And  every  time  you  see  a  play 
And  read  a  book  that  makes  a  jest 

Of  love  or  home,  you  throw  away 
Some  part  of  you  that  is  the  best." 


62  Unofficial  Christianity 

Some  forms  of  business  have  been  so  dragged 
In  the  mire  that  a  self-respecting  man  finds  it  hard 
to  engage  in  them.  Among  the  ancients,  politics 
used  to  be  an  honorable  profession,  but  "profes- 
sional politician"  to-day  carries  with  it  an  un- 
coveted  stigma.  The  promoting  of  amusement 
parks,  seaside  resorts,  race-tracks  and  theatres  has 
resulted  often  In  hoodlumism,  gambling,  and  gen- 
eral looseness  of  living.  A  very  large  number  of 
social  activities  are  in  the  main  innocuous,  but 
handled  improperly  they  become  demoralized  and 
demoralizing.  The  good  in  them  really  more  than 
counterbalances  the  evil.  Yet  because  the  vicious 
Is  present,  they  become  a  social  menace. 

There  are  two  ways  In  which  decent,  clean- 
minded,  and  high-idealed  people  treat  these  so- 
called  "questionable"  things.  One  class,  regard- 
ing them  as  hopelessly  Irredeemable,  taboos  them 
in  toto.  With  a  quite  characteristic  interpretation 
of  Scripture  to  suit  their  own  views,  they  uphold 
their  action  by  the  Pauline  words,  "touch  not, 
taste  not,  handle  not."  They  believe  that  the 
world  will  never  be  safe  for  righteousness  until 
these  moot  forms  of  diversion  are  relegated  to 
the  limbo  of  Satan,  where  by  nature  they  belong. 
This  class  of  people  may  not  be  numerically 
strong,  but  in  the  counsels  of  the  theology  of  or- 
thodoxy they  are  Imposingly  Influential.  The 
other  class  will  avow  frankly  that  they  have  a  lik- 


The  World,  the  Flesh  and  the  Devil      63 

Ing  for  the  "best"  of  these  tabood  amusements. 
They  patronize  the  movies  with  wise  discrimina- 
tion; they  attend  their  children  to  their  school 
dances;  they  spend  an  evening  with  cards  now  and 
then  in  the  company  of  friends.  The  difference 
between  these  two  attitudes  of  mind  is  more  than 
a  superficial  one.  It  strikes  to  the  very  root  of 
Christian  faith.  It  is  the  difference  between  re- 
nouncing the  world  and  redeeming  it,  between  dis- 
carding the  dough  and  leavening  it,  between  the 
asceticism  of  the  monk  and  the  evangelism  of 
Christ.  The  former  view  confesses  the  impotency 
of  Christianity  to  transform  society;  the  latter 
view  holds  that  Christianity  is  meant  to  substitute 
good  for  evil  by  fearless  contact,  the  one  with  the 
other.  In  every  community  there  is  needed  an  as- 
sociation of  friends  of  normal,  wholesome  life, 
who  shall  let  it  be  known  that  they  will  vigorously 
and  sympathetically  support  all  forms  of  amuse- 
ment which  appeal  to  the  fine,  true,  healthy  manly 
and  womanly  qualities  in  people;  which  promote 
sane,  sound  and  essentially  optimistic  attitudes  to- 
ward life;  which  are  not  socially  disruptive,  debas- 
ing or  demoralizing.  The  proprietors  and  pro- 
moters of  all  such  forms  of  diversion  will  be  quick 
to  note  the  increased  patronage  when  the  bill  of 
fare  which  they  offer  is  not  only  palatable,  but 
wholesome. 

The  secret  of  safety  is  not  separation,  but  con- 


64  Unofficial  Christianity 

secration.  The  religion  of  the  twentieth  century- 
will  hold  as  one  of  its  cardinal  principles,  that  the 
possession  of  a  passion  for  God  will  make  men  not 
only  immune  from  evil,  but  creative  of  good.  To 
be  in  the  world  but  not  of  it,  is  the  business  of 
Christ's  followers.  In  the  words  of  the  late  Malt- 
bie  Babcock,  "We  cannot  know  or  enjoy  or  love 
the  world  too  much,  if  God's  will  controls  us.  .  .  . 
Worldllness  is  not  the  love  of  the  world,  but 
slavishness  to  It." 


CHAPTER  VI 

TIMES,   SACRAMENTS  AND  THE  MAN 

PERHAPS  the  most  fascinating  study  for  the 
student  of  Christian  origins,  Is  that  which  per- 
tains to  those  venerable  and  well-established  in- 
stitutions known  as  Sabbath  observance,  baptism, 
and  the  Lord's  Supper.  Because  when  the  student 
has  penetrated  a  little  below  the  surface  in  his 
investigations,  he  will  discover  that  the  roots  of 
these  customs  run  down  into  pre-Christian  pagan- 
ism. It  will  appear  to  him,  therefore,  that  what 
Christianity  has  done  with  them,  has  been  to 
adapt  them  to  Christian  thought,  reinterpret  them 
in  the  light  of  Christian  ideals,  and  reinvest  them 
with  truer  spiritual  meaning.  The  Graeco-Roman 
world  possessed  its  altars,  temples,  festival  days, 
mystic  rites  and  sacerdotal  ceremonies.  And  when 
the  Christian  dynamic  moved  paganism  from  Its 
foundation,  It  did  not  annihilate  so  much  as  it  as- 
similated. It  took  the  days  and  places  and  cults 
and  gave  them  different  content  and  significance. 

Jesus  himself  formally  established  neither  the 
Sabbath  nor  the  sacraments.     The  former  was  a 

65 


66  Unofficial  Christianity 

Jewish  religious  festival,  firmly  established  in  the 
nation  through  contact  with  Babylonian  heathen- 
dom. The  latter  were  developed  out  of  Greek 
and  Jewish  rites.  Early  Christian  usage  trans- 
ferred the  sanctity  from  Saturday,  the  Jewish 
Sabbath,  to  Sunday,  the  Christian  day  com- 
memorative of  the  resurrection.  As  such  it  has 
continued  to  be  regarded  with  especial  favor  and 
partiality.  Jesus  did  not  baptize  nor  did  he  in- 
clude that  function  in  the  first  and  greatest  com- 
mission which  He  gave  to  His  followers  when  He 
told  them  to  "preach,  saying,  'The  Kingdom  of 
God  Is  at  hand.  Heal  the  sick,  raise  the  dead, 
cleanse  the  lepers,  cast  out  demons.'  "  No  sub- 
sequent commission  carries  the  unquestioned  tex- 
tual authenticity  that  this  does,  nor  in  the  slightest 
degree  weakens  nor  invalidates  the  force  of  these 
injunctions.  The  last  and  popularly  called  "great 
commission"  recorded  in  the  two  closing  verses  of 
Matthew's  gospel  quite  justly  is  open  to  the  im- 
putation of  pseudonymity,  since  the  disciples,  in 
their  earliest  labors,  followed  a  policy  directly  con- 
tradictory to  that  of  "evangelizing  all  nations" 
and  using  the  Trinitarian  formula  in  baptism.  This 
fact,  that  the  primitive  church  never  dreamed  of 
world-wide  missionary  effort,  and  initiated  its  con- 
verts through  the  mystic  use  of  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  not  that  of  the  Trinity,  militates  finally 
against  the  genuineness  of  the  Matthew  commis- 


Times,  Sacraments  and  the  Man  67 

slon.  It  is  not  for  one  moment  to  be  believed 
that  had  the  eleven  really  received  this  solemn 
and  final  charge,  they  would  have  so  totally  ig- 
nored it  as  the  record  in  Acts  indicates  they  did. 
It  is  common  knowledge  that,  far  from  consider- 
ing the  Greek  world  as  equally  heir  of  the  gospel, 
all  of  the  disciples  up  to  Paul  strenuously  fought 
the  propaganda  of  "proselyting  all  nations,"  re- 
garding Jesus  as  a  Jewish  Messiah,  and  the  prom- 
ises of  the  Kingdom  limited  to  the  Hebrew  race. 
And  touching  the  baptismal  formula,  the  thought 
was  always  Christocentric,  as  the  reiterated 
phrase  "baptize  into  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ" 
indicates. 

There  is  likewise  strong  critical  evidence  that 
when  Jesus  partook  of  the  final  passover  with  his 
disciples,  and  added  the  touching  symbol  of  the 
bread  and  the  wine,  he  was  not  instituting  a  new 
sacrament  for  perpetual  observance.  Rather  did 
he  wish  that  whenever  his  friends  lifted  the 
broken  bread  and  the  red  wine  to  their  lips,  they 
should  lovingly  think  of  him.  "This  do  in  re- 
membrance of  me.  ...  As  oft  as  ye  do  this,  ye 
do  show  forth  [i.  e.  testify  to]  the  Lord's  death 
till  he  come."  To  the  pious  Jew,  every  meal  was 
sacramental,  for  there  in  spirit  Jehovah  met  with 
him,  and  Jesus  desired  his  disciples  symbolically 
to  feast  with  him  in  like  manner.  The  primitive 
church  made  the  Eucharist  a  part  of  the  common 


68  Unofficial  Christianity 

meal  and  never  formally  and  officially  set  it  aside 
by  a  ritual  or  sacramental  name. 

The  derivation  of  these  three  Christian  insti- 
tutions— the  so-called  "Sabbath,"  the  rite  of  bap- 
tism and  the  communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper — 
has  been  dwelt  upon  at  length  for  this  purpose,  to 
point  out  how  free  the  apostolic  church  was  in 
adapting  old  customs  to  present  needs.  The  su- 
preme demand  was  for  vehicles  of  thought  and 
feeling  adequate  to  convey  spiritual  truth.  The 
Sabbath,  baptism  and  the  Supper  were  to  be  trans- 
parent media,  through  which  the  grace  of  God 
was  to  shine  upon  his  children.  If,  in  the  chang- 
ing circumstances  of  time  and  place,  these  media 
became  inadequate  to  perform  that  function,  it 
certainly  would  be  the  part  of  common  sense  to 
modify  them  until  they  again  could  accomplish  the 
task  for  which  they  were  devised.  The  house  in 
which  one  lives  is  the  same  house  the  year  round. 
But  in  summer  it  answers  the  purpose  of  keeping 
one  cool;  in  winter  it  answers  the  opposite  pur- 
pose of  keeping  one  warm.  Once,  men  scratched 
the  ground  with  a  pointed  stick;  now  they  tear  it 
deep  with  a  plow.  Their  object  is  the  same  in 
both  cases.  Thus  in  the  matter  of  the  institutions 
and  sacraments  of  Christian  faith,  the  great  prin- 
ciple is  that  of  accommodation,  making  the  means 
adequate  and  efficient  to  produce  the  end. 

Take  the  Sabbath  first.     The  classic  and  all- 


Times,  Sacraments  and  the  Man  69 

sufficient  word  of  Jesus  is  "the  Sabbath  was  made 
for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath.  Therefore  the 
Son  of  Man  is  Lord  also  of  the  Sabbath."  A  cor- 
rect understanding  of  the  latter  phrase  will  throw 
much  light  on  the  whole  question.  Jesus  spoke  in 
Aramaic,  the  popular  dialect  of  the  Jews.  And  in 
this  tongue,  the  expression  "son  of"  commonly- 
meant  a  single,  individual  member  of  a  generic 
group  of  things.  Thus  the  above-quoted  phrase 
may  well  mean,  "each  man  is  Lord  of  the  Sab- 
bath,"— a  quite  natural  conclusion  from  the  dec- 
laration that  "the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man." 
The  kernel,  therefore,  of  this  logion  of  Jesus 
about  the  Sabbath,  is  that  the  day,  as  an  institu- 
tion, is  a  means  to  an  end.  The  complete  welfare 
of  man  is  that  end.  If  the  Sabbath,  as  an  ob- 
served institution,  truly  ministers  to  the  all-round 
good  of  man,  it  should  be  preserved.  If  it  does 
not,  it  must  be  modified  or  abandoned.  Now  our 
trouble  to-day  is  this:  we  do  not  so  much  abuse 
the  Sabbath  as  we  abuse  man.  We  place  a  low, 
cheap,  and  unworthy  value  upon  him,  and  then 
modify  all  our  Sabbath  usages  to  meet  this  new 
demand,  justifying  our  procedure  by  the  declara- 
tion that  we  are  thus  making  man  "lord  of  the 
Sabbath."  But  we  grossly  slander  man  when  we 
map  out  his  regeneration  by  means  of  a  program 
of  more  amusement,  warmer  clothes,  better  food 
and  greater  leisure, — and  stop  there.     When  we 


70  Unofficial  Christianity 

do  this,  it  is  inevitable  that  "Sabbatarianism"  ap- 
pears as  a  check  in  our  effort  to  reform  men  in 
this  material  way.  So  we  exultantly  quote  Jesus* 
words  about  "the  Sabbath  being  made  for  man," 
and  sweep  aside  all  the  conventions  as  being  prud- 
ish, "Puritanical"  and  out  of  date.  It  would  be 
well  for  us  tq'  remember  that  we  never  shall 
do  justice  either  to  God  or  man,  until  we  esti- 
mate man  at  his  highest  value.  So  long  as  we  take 
materialistic  and  "pleasure"  views  of  life,  and 
try  to  fit  man,  the  "noblest  work. of  God,"  into 
such  a  petty  scheme,  just  so  long  shall  we  degrade 
man  and  misunderstand  God's  purpose  for  him. 
What  are  life's  supremest  values?  Fun,  food, 
money,  might?  If  we  are  after  these,  we  shall 
have  no  use  at  all  for  any  kind  of  an  institution 
called  the  "Sabbath."  But  if  honor,  truth,  sym- 
pathy, love  really  make  men,  then  the  influences 
of  Sunday  as  a  day  apart  from  other  days  are 
needful  in  his  life.  If  we  think  of  man  as  Christ 
thought  of  him,  we  shall  try  to  conserve  in  him 
those  traits  which  mark  him  as  different  from  the 
animals.  If  the  Sabbath  laws  help  to  do  this,  we 
shall  keep  them;  if  they  do  not,  we  shall  discard 
them.  This  cuts  both  deep  and  wide.  If  Sab- 
batarianism works  for  the  physical,  mental,  moral, 
social,  and  spiritual  uplift  of  the  modern  man,  the 
religion  of  the  twentieth  century  endorses  it.  But 
there   can  be  no  inflexible  rule   for  all.     What 


Times,  Sacraments  and  the  Man  71 

fits  one  community  may  not  lit  another.  Men  who 
rot  in  skims,  who  feed  machines,  who  are  bound 
to  the  stupifying  treadmill  of  monotonous  manual 
toil,  need  a  kind  of  rejuvenation  and  revitalizing 
on  Sunday  that  most  others  do  not.  "Sabbatarian- 
ism," as  commonly  understood,  would  be  a  mill- 
stone about  the  neck  of  the  industrial  classes.  To 
run  everybody  through  the  same  mould  of  Sabbath 
legislation  would  be  as  stupid,  disastrous,  and 
wicked  as  it  would  be  to  establish  a  national  com- 
pulsory bill  of  fare,  irrespective  of  the  ages,  tem- 
peraments, appetites  and  physical  peculiarities  of 
the  one  hundred  and  more  million  people  of  this 
country.  We  should  eat  food  to  sustain  life,  and 
we  should  observe  Sunday  for  the  same  reason. 
When  we  take  an  eternally  worthwhile  view  of 
life,  we  shall  know  how  to  nourish  ourselves  on 
Sunday  as  well  as  on  every  other  day. 

In  like  manner,  we  shall  regard  the  sacraments 
as  binding  and  indispensable,  only  as  they  effectu- 
ally teach  certain  great  and  deathless  truths  to 
heart  and  mind.  Baptism  is  in  itself  nothing. 
Jesus  never  made  it  a  means  of  salvation.  It  may 
have  absolutely  no  illuminating  or  instructing 
power  for  a  not  inconsiderable  number  of  people 
who  are  so  constituted  as  not  to  need  the  help 
of  symbol  or  object-lesson  in  order  to  assimilate 
truth.  In  either  form,  immersion  or  sprinkling, 
the  baptismal  formula  impresses  the  twofold  truth 


72  Unofficial  Christianity 

of  a  cleansed  past  and  a  spirit-filled  future.  "As 
in  a  figure"  the  recipient  of  the  rite  sees  his  sins 
washed  away  and  is  assured  of  the  incoming  grace 
of  God.  To  many,  this  sacrament  is  truly  a 
"means  of  grace."  The  reality  of  God's  forgive- 
ness and  re-enforcing  power  becomes  vital  and 
concrete  through  the  act  of  immersion  or  sprink- 
ling. But  to  many  others  it  adds  nothing  to  the 
experience  which  is  already  theirs.  They  have 
felt  the  cleansing  effect  of  God's  love;  they  are 
convinced  that  God  is  in  them,  "the  hope  of 
glory."  The  rite  of  baptism,  therefore,  neither 
adds  to  the  solemn  joy  of  an  experienced  new 
birth,  nor  detracts  from  it.  To  the  sacrament 
they  passively  submit,  as  a  conventional  formula. 
Others  there  are,  and  they  are  a  growing  num- 
ber, who  actually  resent  the  imputation  that  any 
form,  symbol,  or  sacrament  is  needed  when  they 
have  come  to  reahze  that  they  are  God's  children 
and  the  recipients  of  his  favor. 

The  question,  therefore,  becomes  an  insistent 
one :  in  view  of  the  variety  of  honestly  differing 
opinion,  and  bearing  in  mind  the  original  failure 
of  Jesus  to  inaugurate  this  rite  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  insisting  upon  this  symbol  as  an  indispen- 
sable means  of  salvation,  can  the  religion  of  the 
twentieth  century  continue  to  make  baptism  a  uni- 
versal and  compulsory  method  of  initiation  into 
the  realm  of  God?     If  what  has  b^en  above  con- 


Times,  Sacraments  and  the  Man  73 

tended  is  true,  then  we  may  be  confident  that  if 
and  when  men  come  to  experience  vitally  the 
cleansing  power  of  God's  love  and  forgivness,  and 
the  quickening  effect  of  his  continued  presence 
within  their  hearts, — the  twofold  truth  which  is 
symbolized  by  the  rite  of  baptism, — they  will  be 
found  more  and  more  generally  discarding  the 
sacrament  while  exalting  the  truth. 

The  same  line  of  argument  holds  for  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Supper,  with  this  difference.  Whereas 
it  must  inevitably  fall  into  disuse  as  a  mystic 
means  whereby  God's  grace  is  conferred  upon 
the  believer,  it  will  persist  and  grow  in  meaning 
as  a  memorial  or  fellowship  meal.  Baptism  is  an 
act  quite  foreign  to  our  normal  living,  but  men  will 
continue  to  break  bread  and  take  the  cup  so  long 
as  life  shall  last.  It  is  therefore  quite  possible 
to  stress  the  sacrament  of  the  Supper,  as  it  is  not 
possible  to  exalt  that  of  baptism.  Only  in  doing 
the  former,  the  twentieth  century  religion,  mind- 
ful of  the  symbolic  nature  of  the  rite,  will  more 
and  more  insist  that  the  whole  occasion  be  one  In 
which  the  same  kind  of  spiritual  fellowship  with 
Christ  be  recognized,  as  men  recognize  with  one 
another  when  they  eat  and  drink  in  love  and  help- 
fulness. As  an  essential,  indispensable,  and  offi- 
cially established  means  of  salvation,  the  Supper 
never  can  hold  the  hearts  and  minds  of  modern 
men.      As   a   touching  reminder   and   symbol   of 


74  Unofficial  Christianity 

that  larger  fellowship  of  men  with  men,  and  men 
with  God,  it  will  continue  to  make  its  appeal. 

The  world  is  hungry,  not  for  signs  and  symbols, 
but  for  truth  and  reality.  We  are  to  be  "trans- 
formed by  the  renewing  of  our  minds,  that  we 
may  prove  what  is  the  good  and  acceptable  and 
perfect  will  of  God" ;  we  are  to  bring  it  to  pass 
that  "Christ  may  dwell  in  our  hearts  by  faith  .  .  . 
that  we  may  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God." 
Do  the  sacraments  efficiently  minister  to  this  end? 
If  they  do,  we  shall  hold  them;  If  they  do  not,  they 
must  go. 


CHAPTER  VII 


JUST   BEING   GOOD 


IT  is  significant  that  when  Jesus  desired  to 
show  the  real  connection  between  religion  and 
morals,  he  quoted  an  Old  Testament  prophet.  He 
was  being  criticized  harshly  for  the  Infraction  of 
the  caste  system  which  decreed  that  pious  relig- 
ionists should  not  break  bread  at  the  same  table 
with  the  non-conformists  and  unorthodox.  In  re- 
ply to  his  detractors,  Jesus  called  their  attention 
to  the  fact  that  they  did  not  know  what  religion 
in  its  essence  was,  if  they  could  pursue  such  prac- 
tices. Fellowship,  kindly  consideration  and  com- 
radeship are  of  infinitely  more  worth  than  ritual 
and  sacrament.  Out  of  the  mouth  of  their  own 
revered  prophet  would  he  confute  them.  "Go," 
said  he,  "and  get  truly  acquainted  with  the  mean- 
ing of  this  word — 'I  desire  mercy,  not  sacrifice.'  " 
Not  from  the  prophets  had  the  Pharisees 
drawn  their  sanction  for  the  violent  and  unnatural 
divorcing  of  morals  from  worship.  From  Elijah 
even  unto  MalachI  the  burden  of  the  prophetic 
message  was  the  abhorrence  of  Almighty  God  for 

75 


76  Unofficial  Christianity 

any  ritual  that  was  not  productive  of  justice, 
mercy,  and  truth.  In  this  respect,  Jesus  simply 
reiterated  with  a  supreme  emphasis  the  sermon 
messages  of  these  ancient  preachers  of  social 
righteousness.  In  the  mind  of  Jesus,  religion  and 
morality  were  absolutely  inseparable.  They  were 
like  the  tree  and  the  fruit  which  it  bears;  like  the 
thought  and  the  word  which  springs  to  the  lips 
to  express  it;  like  the  music  in  the  heart  of  the 
composer  and  the  song  which  he  sings  for  the 
world;  like  the  mother's  love  and  the  tender  care 
which  that  love  inspires.  Devotion,  worship, 
love,  loyalty,  faith, — these  are  the  ingredients  of  a 
religion  that  is  imperishable.  Justice,  mercy,  ser- 
vice, goodness, — these  are  the  moral  fruits  of 
such  a  religion.  From  the  days  of  the  prophets 
even  until  now  religion  has  been  done  to  death 
in  the  house  of  its  friends,  who  have  not  hesitated 
to  recommend,  by  precept  and  example,  a  course 
of  life  based  upon  cultus,  ritual,  and  ceremony 
alone.  As  a  result  there  has  been  a  vast  deal  of 
altogether  superfluous  sneering  at  "mere  moral- 
ity" on  the  part  of  those  professing  to  be  "re- 
ligious." Youth  have  been  warned  solemnly  that 
"morality  alone  cannot  inherit  the  Kingdom  of 
God."  Blameless  characters  outside  the  church 
have  been  held  up  as  fearful  examples  of  the  un- 
worthy end  of  non-Christians.  To  such  an  ex- 
treme has  this  been  carried  that  literature  has 


Just  Being  Good  77 

freely  caricatured  the  man  of  religious  pretensions 
devoid  of  moral  actions,  and  It  has  besmirched  the 
fair  name  of  morality  by  calling  such  a  man 
''moral"  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  neither 
religious  nor  moral. 

Hence  there  has  arisen  the  startllngly  unchris- 
tian assumption,  that  good  as  a  man  may  be.  If 
he  Is  not  religious  there  Is  something  the  matter 
with  him.  By  a  curious  perverseness  of  reason- 
ing It  has  been  believed  that  an  Impeccable  char- 
acter Is  something  to  be  rather  ashamed  of  If  Its 
possessor  can  not  show  a  card  of  membership  in 
an  evangelical  church. 

Leaving  for  the  time  being  all  further  discus- 
sion of  the  relation  between  religion  and  ethics, 
let  us  ask  this  question:  "Who  Is  the  good  man?" 
If  we  are  able  to  answer  this  query,  it  will  be 
easier  to  show  how  morals  are  grounded  In  faith. 
Nothing  will  throw  more  light  upon  this  matter 
than  the  temper  and  attitude  of  Jesus.  Whatever 
else  he  was,  he  was  supremely  good.  He  demon- 
strated this  goodness,  for  one  thing,  by: 

I.  Altruistic  Attentiveness.  He  was  sensitive 
to  a  vaster  w^orld  than  his  fellows  were.  The 
circle  of  his  interests  included  infinite  dimensions. 
His  relation  to  life  was  wide-eyed  and  far-sighted. 
He  answered  a  cosmic,  not  a  local  appeal.  In  It 
all,  his  position  was  uprightly  and  downrightly 
unselfish.     We  absolve  him  from  any  and  every 


78  Unofficial  Christianity 

mercenary  end.  His  awareness  of  the  universe 
was  not  that  he  might  make  the  universe  serve 
his  ambitions.  His  one  injunction,  "love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself,"  when  interpreted  by  his  Hfe, 
summed  up  this  characteristic  of  disinterested  vis- 
ion. For  necessity,  not  propinquity,  is  the  con- 
dition of  "neighborness."  To  know  this  need, 
wherever  around  the  world  it  may  be,  and  to 
know  it  to  alleviate  it,  is  altruistic  attentiveness, 
the  first  requisite  of  goodness. 

This,  it  should  be  noted,  is  exactly  opposed  to 
the  motive  and  conduct  of  the  Caesars,  Napo- 
leons, and  Kaisers.  Their  view,  to  be  sure,  is 
world-wide.  Their  circle  of  interests  takes  in  all 
nations.  They  concern  themselves  with  the  af- 
fairs of  mankind.  They  are  aware  of  the  gigantic 
proportions  of  human  relations,  and  project  their 
plans  upon  great  canvases.  But  the  sole  aim 
and  end  of  their  prodigious  adventures,  is  egotistic, 
not  altruistic.  Personal  glory  and  aggrandize- 
ment is  the  sum  of  their  efforts.  The  world  is  to 
be  their  football,  with  the  goal  posts  directly 
ahead,  and  their  toe  at  the  leather.  They  scorn 
small  views,  but  think  In  world  terms  only  to  loot 
the  world. 

Others  there  be  who,  eschewing  narrow  out- 
looks on  life,  plan  to  accomplish  heroic  things  for 
a  small  and  select  circle  of  friends.  These  men 
are  sometimes  called  patriots,  because  they  aim  to 


Just  Being  Good  79 

exalt  their  country  and  their  countrymen.  But  in 
doing  so,  they  are  willing  to  trample  upon  the 
rights  of  other  states  and  races.  They  are  wide- 
eyed  not  for  selfish  reasons,  perhaps,  but  surely 
not  for  broadly  altruistic  reasons.  They  would 
have  their  interests  and  those  of  their  fellow  citi- 
zens triumph  at  the  expense  of  the  rest  of  the 
world.  None  of  these  men  can  be  convicted  of 
a  lack  of  attention  to  the  world  about  them.  The 
difference  between  them  and  the  good  man  is 
this :  that  the  former  acquaint  themselves  with 
the  world  to  consume  the  world,  and  the  latter,  to 
uplift  the  world. 

This  indicates  the  criterion  whereby  we  judge 
of  a  man's  "public  spirit."  Without  this  admir- 
able personal  characteristic,  a  man  thinks  in  a 
small  circle,  is  aware  of  a  limited  world,  or  else, 
conceiving  of  life  in  large  dimensions,  puts  him- 
self, like  a  spider  in  his  web,  at  the  centre  of  the 
whole  scheme.  But  possessing  public  spirit,  he  is 
first  convinced  of  the  fact  that  his  fellow  citizens 
are  interesting  people,  their  occupations,  recrea- 
tions and  careers  in  general  are  as  vital  to  the 
community  as  his  own,  and  their  rights  to  be  as 
firmly  respected  as  he  would  have  others  respect 
his.  He  is  thus  a  man  of  more  than  one  idea, 
who  includes  humanity  in  the  field  of  his  interest- 
ing review,  and  who  believes  that  his  own  life  is 
worth  nothing  if  not  a  part  of  the  larger  world- 


8o  Unofficial  Christianity 

whole. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  good  man  is: 
II.  Absolute  World-Sensitiveness.  He  is 
touched  with  the  feelings  of  the  world's  infirmi- 
ties. The  pain  of  all  mankind  is  his  pain,  and  the 
joy  of  all  mankind  is  his  joy.  Jesus  gazes  at 
Jerusalem  and  weeps  the  bitterest  tears  ever  shed 
from  mortal  eyes.  Why?  Because  it  is  the  city 
which  is  soon  to  take  his  life?  No.  Because  it 
is  callous  to  God  and  deaf  to  righteousness.  Sa- 
vonarola agonizes  over  Florence.  Why?  Because 
it  is  preparing  the  faggots  and  stake  and  torch 
for  him?  No.  Because  it  has  returned  to  its 
vanities  and  sensualities,  like  a  dog  to  its  vomit. 
Francis  of  Assisi  breaks  his  heart  over  the  monks 
of  his  new  order.  Why?  Because  they  turned 
their  backs  on  that  which  was  dear  to  him?  No. 
Because  they  have  forsaken  the  Christ  for  wealth 
and  honor  and  power.  Why  should  Jesus  con- 
cern himself  about  the  fate  of  Jerusalem?  Why 
should  Savonarola  be  troubled  about  licentious 
Florence?  Why  should  Francis  mourn  for  weak 
Italian  monks?  They  were  responsible  for  none 
of  these  evils.  They  had  tried  to  avert  them. 
Why  not  wash  their  hands,  Pilate-wise,  of  the 
whole  transaction?  Why  worry  when  one  is  not 
blameworthy?  Enough  for  a  man  to  feel  re- 
morse for  his  own  delinquencies,  without  adding 
superfluous  misery  for   misdoings   which  cannot 


Just  Being  Good  8i 

be  charged  against  him!  In  short:  why  expect 
that  In  the  domain  of  moral  evil  a  man  should  feel 
sorrow  for  that  which  he  neither  commits  himself 
nor  for  which  he  Is  In  the  slightest  degree  respon- 
sible? The  world  would  be  a  good  bit  nearer  the 
millennium  if  every  culpable  man  and  woman  in 
It  recognized  his  and  her  culpability  and  tried  to 
atone  for  It. 

But  It  Is  right  at  this  point  that  the  truly  good 
advances  beyond  the  merely  respectable.  It  Is 
not  enough  to  mourn  for  your  own  sins  and  make 
atonement  for  your  own  transgressions.  Not  thus 
will  the  eternal  realm  of  God  come.  Respecta- 
bility owns  to  Its  faults  when  It  has  been  con- 
vinced of  them,  and  seriously  attempts  rectifica- 
tion. But  goodness  feels  pain  for  the  faults  of 
others,  for  which  It  Is  not  In  the  slightest  degree 
responsible,  and  disinterestedly  tries  to  restore 
the  sinner.  It  Is  just  this  extra  sensitiveness  to  the 
sin  of  the  world  that  marks  the  good  man.  No 
man  Is  really  moral  who  does  not  feel  some  of 
the  pain  of  the  evil  and  sting  of  the  sin  which  has 
never  come  nigh  him  and  which  he  never  has 
committed. 

This  Is  vicariousness.  It  is  the  capacity  to 
enter  Into  the  world  woe  arising  from  world  sin, 
with  the  end  of  promoting  world  righteousness. 
It  Is  the  real,  poignant  agony  of  good  men  and 
women  everywhere  to-day.     The  divine  power  to 


82  Unofficial  Christianity 

feel  the  tragedy  of  life,  from  which  one  is  per- 
sonally immune,- — this  it  is  upon  which  the  hope 
of  the  world  rests.  In  this  sense  Jesus  "bore  our 
griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows."  In  this  sense 
"he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions  and 
bruised  for  our  iniquities."  And  in  that  same 
sense  the  good  man  carries  the  cross  of  the  world 
to-day.  Too  often  the  malefactor  is  callous  to 
his  own  sin;  he  is  indifferent  to  the  wreck  and 
misery  which  it  causes.  Who  feels  the  pain  the 
deepest?  The  one  who  is  free  from  all  blame 
and  removed  from  all  the  direct  consequences, — 
the  good  man.  The  crime  of  the  city  rises  as  a 
reek  to  heaven,  and  who  wears  out  the  night 
watches  in  prayer  and  fasting  and  the  day  season 
in  hoping  and  planning  for  cleaner  things?  The 
men  and  women  who  have  not  stained  the  fair 
name  of  the  city  nor  turned  it  into  the  way  of 
death.  Why  should  they  distress/  themselves? 
There  are  no  painful  consequences  which  they 
should  fear  from  the  hand  of  the  law.  They  are 
innocent  of  great  transgression.  They  are  even 
sure  of  escaping  the  misery  and  material  loss 
which  follows  in  the  train  of  civic  misdeeds.  But 
their  passion  for  civic  righteousness  is  so  con- 
suming that  even  though  they  are  themselves 
blameless  and  immune  from  the  disastrous  conse- 
quences, they  cry  over  the  disgrace  of  their  city 
with  a  great  and  bitter  cry.     A  morality  which 


Just  Being  Good  83 

cannot  shake  a  man  out  of  his  own  smug  immacu- 
lateness  and  complacent  respectability  is  as  dead 
as  the  mummy  of  Pharaoh.  The  good  man  loves 
goodness  so  much  that  it  is  as  a  sword  piercing 
his  heart  to  see  it  scorned  anywhere.  He  is  cruci- 
fied afresh  to  save  the  world.  He  would  lay  down 
his  life  to  lift  up  the  ideal. 

A  third  and  final  trait  of  the  good  man  is: 
III.  Creative  Social-Mindedness.  Note  what 
this  ideal  follower  of  morality  has  done.  First,  he 
has  broadened  the  domain  of  his  observation  un- 
til it  includes  all  humanity,  and  in  his  observation 
of  men  and  manners  he  is  actuated  by  good-will 
and  magnanimous  interest.  Second,  he  not  only 
feels  a  sensitiveness  to  wrong  for  which  he  is  re- 
sponsible, but  a  pain  for  the  tragic  consequences 
of  others'  misdeeds,  from  the  inconveniences  or 
misfortunes  of  which  he  may  be  totally  Immune. 
But  to  altruistic  attentlveness  and  absolute  world- 
sensltlveness  must  be  added  a  constructive  faculty, 
that  of  creative  social-mlndedness.  Viewing  the 
world  and  feeling  for  the  world  from  the  most 
generous  angle  are  not  enough, — there  must  be 
action  toward  the  Ideal.  The  good  man  must 
take  counsel  with  others  of  like  disposition  for 
the  organization  of  righteousness,  for  the  co-ordi- 
nation of  right  thinking  and  feeling, — In  short, 
for  the  creation  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 
The  age  of  an  Individualistic  goodness  is  by. 


84  Unofficial  Christianity 

There  never  was  such  a  thing,  although  men 
thought  there  was.  Mere  decency  and  conven- 
tional respectabihty  are  content  to  keep  the  law, 
pay  tithes  of  mint,  anise  and  cummin  and  thank 
God  that  they  are  not  as  other  men  are.  Such 
making  broad  of  phylacteries  and  general  apothe- 
osis of  Pharisaism  will  not  save  a  man  against  the 
day  of  reckoning,  neither  will  it  build  up  a  so- 
ciety that  is  worth  the  saving.  No  man  can  grow 
good  alone.  All  goodness  is  social  in  its  genesis 
or  its  exodus.  So  long  as  plums  grow  together  on 
trees  and  men  live  together  in  society,  so  long 
will  both  plums  and  men  ripen  and  rot  collectively. 
Cashing  in  the  remark,  with  a  certain  discount  off 
when  we  remember  the  source,  we  may  accept 
Shaw's  words  for  what  they  are  worth,  that  "a 
man  who  is  better  than  his  fellows  is  a  nuisance." 
Surely  a  man  who  is  devoid  of  creative  social- 
mindedness,  and  solemnly  labors  to  be  good 
by  himself  in  a  corner,  is  at  least  an  "undesirable 
citizen."  But  he  who  would  surround  the  indi- 
vidual with  the  restraints  and  encouragements 
necessary  for  an  organized,  corporate,  and  collec- 
tive righteousness,  takes  the  final  step  in  the  pur- 
suit of  goodness.  For  he  brings  it  into  line  with 
the  processes  of  race  and  state  and  family  develop- 
ment, which  are  in  their  essence  and  in  their  ex- 
pression purely  social. 

The  mainspring  of  such  morality  is  religion. 


Just  Being  Good  85 

However  true  it  may  be  that  the  church  and  offi- 
cial Christianity  are  not  indispensable  for  the 
creation  and  fostering  of  altruistic  attentiveness, 
world-wide  sensitiveness  and  purposeful  social- 
mindedness,  it  cannot  be  maintained  that  these 
ethical  ideals  grow  out  of  the  air  or  out  of  the 
rock.  They  take  root  in  the  good  ground,  which 
is  religion  in  its  deepest  and  most  far-reaching 
sense.  We  are  surrounded  by  a  cloud  of  witnesses 
to  this  truth,  for  wherever  we  find  men  and  women 
laboring  most  sacrificingly  and  perseveringly  for 
human  welfare,  we  find  men  and  women  who  be- 
lieve that  humanity  has  an  eternally  worth-while 
destiny.  This  is  to  believe  in  the  permanence  of 
the  spiritual,  which  is  essentially  religion.  Bald 
materialism  and  unblushing  atheism  do  not  sup- 
ply a  platform  broad  enough  to  support  a  thor- 
oughgoing and  consistent  ethic.  The  social  con- 
sciousness is  possessed  by  those  who  know  that 
God  is,  and  that  he  is  working  out  his  eternal  pur- 
poses in  the  stumbling  pilgrimages  of  men,  his 
children.  The  day  is  past  when  religion  may  say 
to  ethics,  "I  will  have  none  of  thee,"  or  when 
ethics  may  reply,  "And  I  am  not  of  thee."  A 
faith  in  the  divine  order  and  the  ultimate  benefi- 
cent end  of  the  universe,  is  a  faith  in  God,  and 
this  faith  it  is  which  always  has  and  always  will 
nerve  the  arm  of  the  moral  man  to  service,  and 
fill  his  heart  with  an  unquenchable  courage. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    CONCLUSION    OF    THE    WHOLE    MATTER 

OFFICIAL  Christianity  has  had  its  day. 
That  which  is  to  be  will  not  need  the  sanc- 
tion of  established  authority.  It  will  be  because 
it  must  be.  It  will  be  the  renascence  of  that  pro- 
phetic oracle, — "I  will  put  my  law  in  their  in- 
ward parts  and  in  their  heart  will  I  write  it,  saith 
the  Lord."  And  it  will  be  characterized  broadly 
by  the  following  traits. 

I.  Democracy.  Now  is  the  judgment  of  this 
world  on  autocracy.  Now  is  the  emancipation 
of  the  imprisoned  spirit  of  democracy.  The  king- 
doms of  the  world  are  becoming  the  common- 
wealths of  the  people.  The  twilight  of  the  im- 
perial gods  is  here.  Into  every  department  of 
life  and  thought  is  the  spirit  of  democracy  filter- 
ing. Can  religion  escape  it?  Not  for  long,  else 
it  will  pass  into  that  limbo  of  myth  and  fable  re- 
served for  the  worn-out  superstitions  of  inani- 
mate races. 

But  some  will  say,  "Religion  is  and  always 
has  been   democratic."      Unpatronized  by  kings 

86 


The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter     87 

and  unformulated  by  councils,  this  may  be  true. 
True  religion  "bloweth  where  it  llsteth,  and  we 
hear  the  voice  thereof,  but  know  not  whence  it 
cometh  and  whither  it  goeth."  Religion  in  a  dog- 
matic straight-jacket  has  been  and  is  the  religion 
with  which  the  world  is  most  familiar.  Religion 
formulated,  crystallized,  conventionalized,  hob- 
bled by  the  weight  of  majority  votes  in  ecumeni- 
cal councils,  dressed  out  In  obsolete  verbiage  and 
pranked  out  in  disproved  philosophies, — this  is 
standardized  religion,  which  would  bend  the  free 
human  spirit  to  wear  Its  inflexible  yoke,  and  in- 
tended by  God  to  be  a  moving  river  of  truth,  be- 
come instead  a  stagnant  dead  sea. 

The  undemocratic  aspect  of  modern  official 
Christianity  is  plainly  noted  in  two  directions: 
first,  its  creeds  are  rigid.  Democracy  demands 
that  all  forms  of  government,  platforms  of  social 
relations,  and  expressions  of  faith,  shall  be  flexi- 
ble enough  to  accommodate  themselves  to  genuine 
and  vital  changes  in  men.  An  unmodifiable  creed 
is  as  monstrous  an  anomaly  as  an  unmodifiable 
machine.  As  the  hand-press  of  Gutenberg,  with 
its  rough  wooden  types,  is  related  to  the  multiple 
Hoe  press  with  its  linotype  auxiliary  to-day, — so 
should  the  creeds  of  the  time  of  Luther  be  to  the 
creeds  of  the  present.  A  most  casual  glance  at 
ecclesiastical  dogma  will  satisfy  the  most  sanguine 
reformer  that  this  is  not  so.     Instead  of  being  an 


88  Unofficial  Christianity 

Instrument  to  express  thought,  the  official  creed 
to-day  is  one  which  represses  thought.  It  should 
be  elastic,  mobile,  responsive  to  needs,  sensitive 
to  creative  ideas.  With  every  turn  of  the  wheel 
of  time,  new  aspects  of  God's  truth  are  brought 
to  view.  Is  a  stereotyped  creed  adequate  Intel- 
lectually and  emotionally  to  set  forth  this  new 
aspect?  With  every  wind  which  blows  from  over- 
seas come  tidings  of  triumphs  of  the  democratic 
principle.  Is  an  official  creed  competent  to  pic- 
ture forth  the  new  soul  relations  which  those  vic- 
tories mean?  Let  any  man,  In  his  unsophisti- 
cated enthusiasm,  attempt  to  mobilize  the  fixed 
creeds  of  Christendom  In  the  Interest  of  fresKly 
discovered  truth,  and  he  will  discover  speedily 
how  worse  than  vain  are  all  his  honest  efforts. 
The  unofficial  and  freely  working  thought-forms 
of  the  future,  candidly  reflecting  the  experience 
of  the  growing  race,  will  be  democratic  in  their 
spirit.  They  will  be  open  to  revision  from  below 
up,  and  not  from  above  down.  Prelates  and 
potentates  will  listen  when  the  people  rise  up  to 
say  what  they  have  learned  about  God. 

The  second  ground  for  a  belief  that  official 
Christianity  is  not  democratic,  is  the  undeniable 
hostility  of  the  proletariat  toward  It.  A  demo- 
crat will  be  quick  to  detect  the  spirit  of  democracy 
everywhere,  and  if  he  saw  it  in  the  orthodox 
creeds  of  the  day,  he  would  show  his  friendship 


The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter     89 

for  them.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge, 
however,  that  wherever  two  or  three  of  the  par- 
tisans of  democracy  are  gathered  together,  there 
is  no  official  creed  of  Christendom  In  their  midst. 
In  their  planning  for  the  ideal  state,  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness,  these  passionate  souls  can 
find  no  corner  where  they  may  set  up  an  orthodox 
dogma.  The  man  who  toils  with  his  hand  looks 
upon  official  Christianity  to-day,  and  asks  why  the 
men  with  whom  he  can  have  no  truce  until  a  bet- 
ter industrial  order  prevails,  are  all  in  the  places 
of  honor  and  responsibility  within  the  sacred  in- 
stitution. This  man  who  labors  would  worship 
(jod  and  serve  him  but  finds  no  comfort  in  the 
forms  which  are  the  breath  of  life  in  the  great 
churches  about  him.  The  simple  fact  that  the 
mass  of  our  church-membership  is  composed  of 
the  so-called  middle  class — the  salaried,  profes- 
sional, and  capital-owning  classes — is  an  evidence 
that  the  original  purpose  of  Christianity,  which 
was  a  solvent  of  all  ranks  and  artificial  distinc- 
tions, has  been  rather  lost  sight  of.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  the  average  unchurched  workingman  re- 
gards the  doctrines  of  official  Christianity  as 
shrewd  attempts  to  becloud  the  bread-and-butter 
issues  of  life  by  exalting  the  virtues  of  "other- 
worldliness"  and  inculcating  the  doubtful  grace  of 
meekness  under  present  injustice.  Religion  thus 
is  considered  as  a  comfortable  device  to  keep  the 


90  Unofficial  Christianity 

poor  man  contented  with  his  lot,  while  promising 
him  a  doubtful  posthumous  felicity.  It  is  thus  in- 
jurious to  the  framework  of  society  by  virtue  of 
its  platform  of  pure  speculation  and  intangible 
rewards  and  punishments.  Lulled  to  sleep  by 
these  poppied  promises,  and  stranded  upon  the 
shore  of  the  Lotus  eaters,  the  proletariat  may  be 
regarded  as  safely  disposed  of  while  their  heredi- 
tary antagonists,  the  employers  and  capitalists, 
pursue  their  predatory  purposes,  without  molesta- 
tion or  indictment. 

Untrue  as  this  accusation  against  official  Chris- 
tianity may  be,  the  very  fact  that  it  can  be  made 
with  a  certain  plausible  passion,  proves  that  all 
is  not  as  it  should  be  with  the  orthodox  creeds  and 
their  defenders.  When  once  the  latter  have  been 
willing  to  democratize  the  former,  and  stand  by 
such  radically  revised  platforms,  consistently  bear- 
ing out  in  their  lives  the  professions  which  they 
make  in  their  dogmas,  then  those  who  to-day  are 
implacably  hostile  to  religion  as  they  know  it  may 
find  it  in  their  hearts  to  change  their  views  of  that 
institution  inspired  by  the  greatest  Friend  that 
the  laborer  ever  had. 

IL  Idealism.  The  pristine  splendor  of  Chris- 
tianity was  tarnished  early  by  a  lust  for  material 
possession.  Conceived  in  the  fires  of  a  passion 
for  universal  good-will,  truth,  and  righteousness, 
it  bade  fair  to  win  the  world  to  the  most  exalted 


The  Conclusion  of  .the  Whole  Matter     91 

moral  and  spiritual  standard  ever  lifted  among 
men.  Then  came  popularity,  power,  official  rec- 
ognition, opulence,  and  the  vision  splendid  faded 
into  the  common  light  of  day.  Christianity  im- 
perialized  became  Christianity  demoralized.  The 
unique  ethical  elements  which  distinguished  it 
from  all  other  religious  movements  that  ever  had 
been,  were  lost  in  a  mad  scramble  for  place  and 
worldly  emolument.  The  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
the  embodiment  of  the  hierarchical  system 
throughout  the  world,  had  sold  its  spiritual  birth- 
right for  a  mess  of  pottage.  The  poison  with 
which  the  body  of  Christianity  was  at  that  time 
infected  has  not  been  drained  off  since.  Insen- 
sibly the  church  even  to-day  models  her  polity  and 
constructs  her  creeds  upon  the  lines  laid  down  by 
the  civil,  temporal,  and  military  powers. 

But  what  the  world  is  really  hungry  for  is  some 
food  which  is  not  drawn  from  the  granary  of  the 
carnal  and  material.  It  is  just  those  men  who 
have  believed  in  the  impossible,  who  have  caught 
the  attention  of  a  jaded  and  harassed  world  in  all 
ages.  Never  more  than  to-day,  when  pomp  and 
circumstance  and  kings  and  captains  and  guns  and 
drums  pall  on  the  appetite  of  nations,  are  weary 
peoples  asking,  "Has  religion  anything  for  us 
more  than  the  false  philosophies  of  force  and 
fury  have?"  The  terribly  practical,  the  prosai- 
cally efficient,  the  coldly  expedient, — these  have 


92  Unofficial  Christianity 

been  the  shibboleths  of  the  nations.  Now  the  hour 
has  struck  when  the  world  must  be  saved  by  the 
forces  of  the  spirit.  Now  is  the  appointed  time 
for  the  rebirth  of  the  idealism  of  Christ.  Out  of 
the  welter  of  world  war  come  voices  more  and 
more  insisting  that  the  discarded  virtues  of  honor, 
truth,  faith,  patience,  and  sacrifice  are  to  be  the 
eternal  foundations  upon  which  a  new  civiliza- 
tion must  be  erected.  Good  for  men  as  they  have 
been  found  to  be  in  the  microcosm  of  the  home  and 
community  and  state, — they  must  be  good  for  man 
in  the  macrocosm  of  inter-racial  intercourse,  and 
international  reactions.  And  who  is  ordained  to 
herald  this  new  day  more  logically  than  the  Chris- 
tianity which  has  wept  to  see  its  Master  crucified 
afresh  on  the  fields  of  Europe?  Is  she  adequate 
to  the  task  of  proving  that  *'love  is  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world",  that  faith  is  sufficient  to  re- 
move mountains,  that  "he  who  loseth  his  life  shall 
find  it",  that  "righteousness  exalteth  a  nation,  but 
sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people",  that  the  founda- 
tions of  the  universe  are  laid  in  truth  and  justice, 
and  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  the  supreme  law  of 
safe  and  sound  world  life?  In  brief,  that  "man 
does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God."  For 
this  is  idealism,*  and  in  the  waning  of  every  other 

*  The  word  "idealism"  is  used  throughout  in  the  above  sec- 
tion in  the  popular  sense,  as  opposed  to  that  practical  material- 


The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter     93 

philosophy  and  the  failure  of  every  other  panacea, 
to  this  solution  of  the  way  of  life  the  weary  world 
must  come. 

III.  Intelligence.  Official  Christianity  may  not 
be  acquitted  of  an  attitude  of  suspicion  toward  ripe 
scholarship.  Ceasing  to  burn  heretics,  it  abuses 
them.  Stupidity  has  been  termed  less  dangerous 
than  learning.  Orthodox  theology  and  heterodox 
science  have  fought  and  bled  and  lived  to  fight 
again.  Loyalty  to  the  pet  phrases  of  creeds  has 
been  more  lauded  than  loyalty  to  the  hard  de- 
mands of  truth.  When  Genesis  and  geology  dis- 
agree there  is  a  verdict  in  favor  of  the  former 
only.  Schools  and  colleges  which  teach  their 
students  to  think  are  dangerous  to  religion.  These 
and  countless  other  professions  of  distrust  and 
hostility  have  been  hurled  at  the  head  of  that  In- 
telligence which  sometimes  contradicts  the  tenets 
of  dogma.  But  such  cannot  continue  long  to  be 
the  case.  If  Christianity  as  a  virile  force  is  to  sur- 
vive. If  the  processes  of  a  sound  and  well-or- 
dered scholarship  do  not  verify  the  assurances 
of  an  official  creed,  It  is  at  least  open  to  discussion 
whether  the  former  may  not  be  as  near  the  mark 
as  the  latter.  This  much  is  true  that  creeds,  which 
are  supposed  to  be  rational  expressions  of  relig- 
ious faith,  must  be  intelligent  in  their  methods  of 

isni  which  makes  physical  good  the  goal  and  enlightened  self- 
interest  the  way  of  life. 


94  Unofficial  Christianity 

arriving  at   results,   or  they  stultify  both  them- 
selves and  their  makers. 

No  institution  changes  its  methods  of  doing 
business  more  slowly  or  with  greater  protest  than 
the  church.  Experience  which  has  proved  df 
value  in  secular  activities  has  been  able  to  make 
few  suggestions  to  the  church  because  of  its  in- 
nate conservatism.  In  the  organization  of  its 
Bible  School,  to  mention  only  one  instance,  there 
are  many  weak  links  which  make  the  whole  chain 
liable  to  break  under  special  strain.  It  has  been 
computed  carefully  that  fully  fifty  per  cent  of  its 
students  are  lost,  never  to  reurn,  at  the  high  school 
and  adolescent  age.  Between  1908  and  19 14,  in 
England,  the  leading  free  church  showed  a  de- 
crease of  nearly  260,000  members  in  its  Sun- 
day-schools. To  what  shall  the  decline  be  attrib- 
uted? To  antiquated  methods  of  administration 
in  part.  But  in  larger  measure  to  the  unsym- 
pathetic attitude  of  many  religious  leaders  toward 
more  effective  pedagogical  methods  based  on  the 
newer  psychology,  and  their  insensibility  toward 
the  results  of  the  soundest  scholarship  as  it  re- 
lates itself  to  the  Bible  and  the  literature  of 
morals.  When  pupils  of  the  Sunday-schools  reach 
the  age  of  mental  discrimination,  it  will  not  an- 
chor their  faith  in  the  teachings  of  Holy  Writ  to 
affirm  dogmatically  that  their  moral  intuitions 
are  untrustworthy  because  they  do  not  endorse 


The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter     95 

some  Old  Testament  program  of  indiscriminate 
slaughter  of  enemies;  or  that  the  apparent  incon- 
sistencies in  the  Bible  are  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader;  or  that  the  Scriptures  are  ethically  as  well 
as  historically  infallible;  or  that  the  signal  dis- 
play of  favor  on  the  part  of  the  Almighty  toward 
Israel  has  not  been  repeated  toward  non-Hebrew 
nations  even  unto  this  day;  or  that  no  other  litera- 
ture save  the  Bible  contains  revelation  which  is 
profitable  for  salvation.  The  thinking  student 
knows  better  than  to  believe  all  this,  and  to  in- 
sist upon  his  accepting  it  can  result  only  in  lower- 
ing his  opinion  of  the  intelligence  of  the  Sunday- 
school  and  alienating  his  affection  from  it.  There- 
after it  will  be  in  vain  that  committees  meet  and 
bewail  the  defection  of  their  youth  from  the 
church.  Like  school,  like  church;  and  when  it 
comes  to  believing  a  teacher  of  Scripture  on  Sun- 
day, or  a  teacher  of  history  or  science  or  ethics 
the  rest  of  the  week,  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt 
whom  they  will  follow. 

Whatever  may  be  the  path  which  official  Chris- 
tianity will  tread  through  its  orthodox  pronounce- 
ments, it  is  evident  that  the  Christianity  which  is 
to  grip  the  heart  of  the  present  age  will  be  one 
which  hospitably  welcomes  the  alliance  of  sound 
learning,  and  does  not  despise  to  throw  the  light 
of  wisdom  upon  the  road  it  follows. 

IV.  Service.     Religion  is  ubiquitous,  not  local; 


g6  Unofficial  Christianity 

universal,  not  insular.  This  means  that  reUgion 
is  not  only  for  all  people,  but  for  all  departments 
of  life.  If  it  points  to  a  super-mundane  destiny, 
it  provides  for  a  mundane  economy.  "Thy  king- 
dom come  on  earth"  is  its  watchword.  However 
splendidly  it  rears  its  head  among  the  stars,  its 
feet  are  planted  firmly  on  the  ground.  Official 
Christianity  has  conditioned  salvation  upon  be- 
lief in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  let  the  matter 
rest  there.  Unofficial  Christianity  supplements 
this  indispensable  condition  by  the  word  which 
shows  how  one  is  to  believe  in  Christ.  The 
former  is  the  call  to  profession;  the  latter,  while 
not  belittling  profession,  makes  it  terminate  in 
action.  The  Scriptural  beacon-lights  of  the 
former  are,  "Ye  must  be  born  again,"  and  "with 
the  mouth  confession  is  made  unto  salvation." 
The  Scriptural  beacon-lights  of  the  latter  are  "not 
every  one  that  saith  unto  me  'Lord,  Lord'  shall 
enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven," 
and  "he  that  heareth  these  words  of  mine  and 
doeth  them,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  wise  man." 
The  fatal  fault  of  the  salvation  of  orthodoxy  is 
that  it  has  always  been  too  much  of  a  "gabe" 
(gift)  and  too  little  of  an  "aufgabe"  (task).  It 
has  been  saturated  with  the  mysticism  of  Paul, 
and  has  recognized  too  little  the  ethicism  of  Jesus. 
This  may  be  demonstrated  easily  to  the  most  seep- 


The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter     97 

tical,  by  an  examination  of  the  official  creeds  of 
Christianity.  In  practically  every  case  they  will 
be  found  to  be  expositions  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
apostle.  Union  with  Christ  and  confession  of 
Christ,  justification  by  faith,  baptism  into  the  new 
life,  the  antinomy  of  the  flesh  to  the  spirit,  the 
reconciling  death  on  the  cross  and  the  personal 
second  return  of  Jesus, — these  and  other  doc- 
trines, which  are  pre-eminently  Pauline  and  not 
those  of  the  synoptic  Jesus,  are  the  material  out 
of  which  the  ecumenical  creeds  of  history  have 
been  built. 

Now  without  stultifying  itself  by  repudiating 
these  tenets,  which  represent  an  intellectual  ap- 
proximation of  the  richest  Christian  experience  of 
the  past,  the  unofficial  beliefs  of  Christendom  are 
to  be  more  and  more  drawn  from  the  personality, 
example  and  teaching  of  the  Jesus  of  the  synoptic 
gospels.  Men  in  his  day  who  sought  the  way  of 
salvation  were  directed  into  the  pathway  of  self- 
denying  service,  because  all  men  were  brothers 
and  God  was  their  Father.  The  touchstone  of 
loyalty  to  Christ  was  helpfulness.  "Follow  me" 
was  the  one  unconditional  demand  of  disciple- 
ship,  and  following  him,  his  friends  were  taught 
to  "heal  the  sick,  cleanse  the  lepers,  cast  out 
devils,"  preach  the  good  news  and  give  of  them- 
selves in  service  as  freely  as  they  had  received. 
The  Golden  Rule  was  the  cornerstone  of  a  per- 


98  Unofficial  Christianity 

manent  and  worthy  Christian  edifice,  and  the  as- 
surance, "inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one 
of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done 
it  unto  me,"  was  the  all-sufficient  explanation  of 
the  meaning  of  belief  in  Christ. 

It  would  be  hazardous  to  deny,  therefore,  that 
unofficial  Christianity,  while  not  renouncing  the 
crystallized  doctrinal  expressions  of  a  glorious 
past,  will  make  short  work  of  any  system  which 
minimizes  Christ  and  magnifies  Paul.  "Christian- 
ity" has  been  too  long  a  misnomer.  Paulinism, 
Augustinism,  Athanasianism,  medievalism, — any 
and  all  of  these  have  made  creeds  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  ground  and  breathed  into  them  the  breath 
of  their  own  life. 

That  "inward  eye"  which  is  "the  bliss  of  soli- 
tude" has  revealed  to  the  mystic  poet  who  worked 
his  visions  out  in  practical  helpfulness,  what  is 
the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  Christian  living. 

"Our  friend,  our  Brother,  and  our  Lord, 
What  may  thy  service  be? 
Nor  name,  nor  form,  nor  ritual  word, 
But  simply  follov/ing  thee. 

"We  bring  no  ghastly  holocaust. 
We  pile  no  graven  stone; 
He  serves  thee  best  who  loveth  most 
His  brothers  and  thine  own," 


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